Places Brothers Go
by Lionchilde
Summary: A companion piece to my Land and Sky AU, from the POV of Obi-Wan's brother. It's about Obi-Wan's early life and how he was identified as a Jedi candidate.
1. The Harbinger

**Author's Introduction to Land and Sky: Places Brothers Go**

When I posted Land and Sky: Episode I--Happy Endings, my introduction mentioned that there would be a series of interconnected shorter pieces written between episodes. They're similar to the "missing scenes" that I occasionally do for One Path, although they are somewhat longer. Places Brothers Go was the first idea I had for a piece like that, but it is set before the movie saga. It deals with Obi-Wan's early life prior to his being identified by the Jedi and taken to the Temple on Coruscant. It's told from the point of view of his older brother, Owen, whom readers will meet again in Land and Sky: Episode II.

The story spans a period of about 3 years, from when Owen learns he's going to be a brother to when Obi-Wan is taken to the temple. Hopefully, this will answer some of the questions that readers have asked about the introductory quotes I use in Land and Sky. It will probably also lead to new questions as I write. All I can say is, _patience, my young Jedi friends._.

The characters of Obi-Wan's family and the pirate captain Tellenda are my original creations. They have no connection the Star Wars EU and are not supposed to have analogs there. There will be some discussion of events from Count Dooku's time as a Jedi which are _loosely_ based on EU plots. Credit will be given in the chapter/story notes where appropriate. However, readers should probably not expect things to "match" very well with the EU.

The Faorrins are inspired by, though not identical to, Dee Dreslough's Arrallin race. Concepts from her novel _Lost Waters_ are adapted here for Krir and Ierei with her permission.

For anyone who wants to know more about the Ka'andesi culture, check out the links on my profile page.

Lastly, I'm just getting back to fic writing after an 8 month hiatus. I'll be taking this slow, and I won't be posting as often as I used to for a while, but rest assured that, if I have committed to post something, I will finish it. 

* * *

**Chronicler's Introduction to Land and Sky: Places Brothers Go by Inalia Kenobi**

It is a Chronicler's duty to carry all the stories of her people. Our stories make us who we are. They shape our lives and the lives of our children and their children. So, it is said that the Chroniclers of the Ka'andesi hold not just the history of our clans but the very souls of the clans.

A story is the greatest gift that one Ka'andesi can share with another. This is a story that my Uncle Owen gave me before he died. It is his, and my father's, and in the way of the clans, it is also the story of their children.

Above all, it is the story of _Inal_, our home-place.

* * *

_The Ka'andesi say that the land whispers the will of the Force. Pay attention to the patterns of life and death all around you. What you will is the movement of the Force._

—_Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples,_ as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear

My name is Owen Kenobi. My brother is a Jedi Knight, but I spent most of my formative years as an only child. Only children are an oddity among the Ka'andesi. In the clans, the two biggest measuring-sticks for personal and filial wealth are children and productive land. Families tend to be large, sprawling affairs, with multiple generations and branches living in the same home. Brothers, sisters, and cousins all interact much the way that siblings do in outclan families. Parents, aunts, and uncles share childcare and disciplinary responsibilities indiscriminately, and in the case of stepfamilies, there is never a separation made between a person's natural children and the children of his or her spouse. In fact, the Ka'andesi languages have no word for "stepparent" or "stepchild." So, one way or another, a child of the clans is usually surrounded by other younglings—often to a claustrophobic extent.

Our family was unusually small anyway. There was only my mother, my father, my Aunt Sabiha—whom I called Aunt Bee when I addressed her in Basic—and Sabiha's husband, my Uncle Dannik. So, for the first ten years of my life, I was the sole occupant of our house under the age of twenty-five and the solitary keeper of all the secrets hidden in the rolling plains behind it. Of course, that also meant that I was the sole source of free labor, either in the herb orchard, the healing room, or on my father and uncle Dannik's occasional "freelance" activities.

Overall, though, I didn't mind. The solitude of the plains was never lonely to me. I learned to be like the grasshoppers: capable of remaining entirely still for hours, hidden in the waving tallgrass to watch the prairie muskrats and the black-tailed jackrabbits come and go. The bantha, pronghorn, and tri-horned antelope herds accepted my presence because I kept a respectful distance. For a while, I was befriended by a red fox kit, which my dad found amusing since it was the animal from whom he took his Ka'andesi name. After that, I was befriended by a large female skunk, which he found even more amusing.

My mother taught me how to avoid the sprinters, mountaincats, and other nonsentient predators. Working with my aunt in the herb orchard taught me which plants were harmful and which could be eaten or harvested for medicines and other necessities. About the only being which could sneak up on me on the plains was my friend Ierei Avardi. She was Faorrin—a wolf-like species who had inhabited our planet long before the Ka'andesi clans settled there. Ierei's den was about 30 kilometers west of my family's home-place, at the edge of the savannah, where the tallgrass of the plains and the thick western forests had formed a sort of compromise.

The trek from my house to the den was far too long and arduous for me to make in an afternoon on foot, but on her repulsorboard, Ierei could cover the distance in a little more than an hour. I could always see the glint of the sun off the board's silver surface long before I even made out a physical shape. It was fairly easy to track her progress across the open plain, but as she came closer, she would duck into the grass to hide her approach. Since the board never touched the ground and she was far more adept at the art of stealth than I was, she usually managed to spring at me and bowl me off my feet.

The whole thing became something of a daily competition between us. If I wasn't pounced on and sent rolling across the plain, I could be fairly certain that Ierei was mad at me. Like most young Faorrins, she was largely motivated by the needs of her stomach, and she timed her daily arrival to coincide roughly with my family's noon meal. Guests were almost always welcome, and even on the few occasions when another might not have been, Ierie had a special dispensation, since her father had been partners with my dad and Uncle Dannik.

On the day we learned of my brother, Ben's impending arrival, Ierie and I were actually getting along. As a consequence, we were late to the table, having discovered an active hawk's nest in the wedgewood trees that comprised the windbreak of an abandoned homestead. It was rare to find a nesting pair of hawks on the plains. There were few trees or rock outcroppings that the birds could use. Most trees that did exist had been planted as windbreaks like this one, and the hawks were extremely sensitive to human activity near potential nesting sites.

It looked as if this place had belonged to wheat farmers who were driven into the city for work during the last big drought. I was five when that drought came, and all I remembered was a vague sense of worry and tension that began to pervade the clans. It even touched my family, who were not entirely dependent on the land for their survival. Five years would have been just enough time for the birds to feel that this place was safe to build a home in.

It was early spring, and we knew that the hawks could produce eggs until midsummer. My aunt's duties as a Weaver of the Ka'andesi included keeping ecological records. Each birth and death on the plains was important to her, especially when it came to species with low birth rates like the hawks we'd spotted. Getting to help with this sort of cataloging was one of the real pleasures of growing up close to a Clan Weaver. Partly, we were excited about the chance to report a find that would undoubtedly be of special interest in the district record. Mostly, we were curious and eager to have a look for ourselves—eager to say that we had seen hawk's eggs with our own eyes.

We had to lay in the grass for most of an hour before both birds flew off. That in itself excited us, since it was a strong indication that there would be eggs in the nest. Once the adults were gone, we picked ourselves up off the ground; rubbed ourselves down with handfuls of grass, dirt and wild herbs to mask our scents; and took the repulsorboard as high as Ierei could coax it. Then we carefully slipped into the branches beneath the nest and eased ourselves upward.

Faorrins were lupine, but they had long, prehensile tails and opposable thumbs which curled under their paws when they walked, so Ierei never had any trouble keeping up with me in the trees. Both of us were fairly adept climbers, since there was a similar windbreak around my own home. This climb, however, took twice the normal amount of time, because we had to take excruciating care not to upset the nest or do anything that would cause the parents to abandon any unhatched offspring that might be inside. The wind constantly rattled the branches, adding to the challenge, but we kept on, determined to have a look. Finally, we were high enough to peer up over the edge of the nest and found a single white egg covered in brown splotches.

"Aren't there supposed to be more?" Ierei asked, her wet, wolflike nose twitching and flaring with half-confused interest.

"Usually at least two or three," I nodded, frowning. "Maybe it's too early yet. I'll ask my aunt."

At the mention of my family, Ierei's stomach rumbled loudly. She nodded in agreement. "Okay. C'mon, I'm hungry."

I rolled my eyes to the expanse of bright, cloudless blue over our heads. "You're always hungry."

"So what?" she challenged.

"Nevermind," I sighed, beginning to shinny my way back down. "We're late already. We're probably going to get in trouble."

"They're still going to give us lunch, aren't they?" she asked, only half joking.

_"Yes, Ierei…"_


	2. The Watcher

_Homes say much about the people who live in them. Pay attention to where someone chooses to live, and to the people he lives with._

—_Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples,_ as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear

Ierei and I weren't surprised to see my father on the roof of the main house as we came to a halt in the courtyard. He couldn't see us coming, but most days, his sharp ears could pick up the faint whine of the repulsorboard even through the wind on the plains. He almost always knew someone was coming toward the house before anyone else did. We hopped off the board, both automatically waving as we waited for him to make his way down to us.

Homes in our clan were actually more like compounds, and were built like interlocking wheels or gears. At each hub is an open courtyard—or at least a small plot of earth, depending on the size of the family and the wealth of the land. Doors were arranged symmetrically around the courtyard walls, and in the spaces between them, there were winding steps which lead up to a balcony that wrapped around the entire enclosure. Foldable ladders could be extended from the roof to the balcony or pulled up again from the top. Dad turned and gave the nearest ladder a light kick, then scrambled down. Most adults find the steps a convenient enough point of access from the balcony to the courtyard below, but more than once I'd seen my father grab the knotted ropes that Ierei and I tied from the balcony rails and swing down the way we did. Today he didn't, which probably meant that my mom was still lurking in the kitchen and aware of everything that was going on outside. Rooms are layered around the courtyard walls in rings, and short, wide enclosed passages extend from them like spokes. The wheels are laid out so that each set of spokes is nestled in the open spaces of the one beside it, and open doorways or smaller corridors allow movement between one wheel and another. Sound travelled easily, and from the kitchen in the main house, it was possible to hear almost everything that went on in the complex.

Dad hurried down the steps, walking stick in hand but never actually touching the ground in front of him. At home, the familiar rhythmic tongue clicking that he used as a means of echolocation was the only indication of blindness. Most people took it for an eccentric habit until they knew him well enough to realize that he couldn't see. I rarely thought about it at all, except as a gauge of his temper. I could tell whether I was in for a lecture or a real punishment by the volume and tone of his clicking. This time, Ierei and I glanced at each other and let out a joint sigh of relief. He was in an oddly good mood given the fact that he'd had his noon meal delayed. As soon as he reached us, the edge of the carved oak staff tapped the side of the repulsorboard.

"Where in the blazes have the two of you been?" he demanded. "Another few minutes and we were going to form a search party."

That was probably an exaggeration. I spent entire days out on the plains, and sometimes even camped overnight. It wasn't likely that my parents would have been that concerned after just a couple hours. Ierei and I exchanged glances, but I could tell from her expression that she didn't dare voice such an opinion any more than I did. Dad trained his milky, green-blue eyes on me, waiting for an answer, and as I sought for one, I was caught in a rush of memory and felt a resurgence of the exhilaration I'd experienced when we found the nest.

"We found a hawk's nest, _Okodi!"_ I replied, automatically reverting to the Ka'andesi title in my excitement. "We only wanted to get a look in the nest—honest, but the mother and father were still there and we had to wait!"

"Oh, yes," my father nodded, "Because the nest was just _bound_ to disappear if you came all the way home to eat on time so your mother didn't worry."

"Well, I—" I broke off, biting my lip as a glanced at my compatriot for support.

"That's what I told him, Uncle Fox!" she nodded vehemently.

"You did not!" I protested, offended but not particularly surprised at Ierei's sudden tactical withdrawal. If it had been anything important, of course, she would have stuck by me. She usually did even if we both knew I was wrong. We were obviously not in trouble here, though, and as such her stomach became her main concern.

"Did too, Owen, you just never listen!" she retorted.

"Liar!" I accused, but my brow puckered in a slight frown as I tried to remember more of the conversation we'd had while waiting for the birds to take flight. Maybe she had and I'd just been too excited to listen.

"All right…" Dad tried to interrupt.

"I am not! And I think you were just trying to avoid the carrots!" she shot back at me with an accusation of her own.

A rather lame one, in my opinion, and I made sure she knew that with a quick, disparaging look and a snort. "You are too—besides, even if you said something like that, it was only because you were hungry!"

"Who cares if I'm hungry?! It's still true!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't see you rushing back here instead of climbing up that tree with me, Ierei!" I pointed out hotly.

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Leave you there?" she half-growled.

"Why not? It's not like I don't know the way back to my own house. And if you were mad that's exactly what you woulda done!" I replied sharply.

"Well, I wasn't mad then, but I'm gonna be if you don't—"

A shrill whistle from my father cut off further argument. Ierei yipped in alarm, and I winced sharply, fighting down the urge to clap my hands over my ears. Both of us gulped and looked up at him with a hint of nervousness.

"All right!" he repeated. "I don't care who said what to whom when or who was hungry and who wasn't. Would you like to know why?"

I could guess, but I merely nodded and said, "Yes, sir."

"Because I happen to be hungry _now!_ Let's go. Both of you, inside," he said as he raised his staff and brought the end of it down lightly and expertly on the back of Ierei's board. It kicked up, and he caught it easily, tucking it under his arm as he continued, "And don't leave this thing laying around. Don't you know the blind guy could trip over it?"

"Yes, Dad," I shook my head and darted for the kitchen door.

"Whatever, Uncle Fox," Ierei giggled as the staff moved outward to swat both of our backsides.

"And wash your hands. And you are eating those carrots, Owen. And don't forget to—ah, stang! She's turning me into a Ka'andesi housewife!" he broke off his string of reminders and began muttering as he followed us inside.

"Fox," my mother's voice called from somewhere just beyond my sight. "Watch your mouth!"

"Yes, dear…" 


	3. The Announcement

_Mealtime traditions are among the most important for the Ka'andesi. Meals are when the work of the day can be put aside. They are a time for sharing news and for sharing each other._

—_Reflections on the Ka'andesi Home Life,_ by Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear

Giggling, Ierie and I dashed through the wide, lemon-tiled kitchen, skirting my mother on either side as we ran for the 'fresher at the end of the hall. Ierie pulled both faucet-handles forward and we shoved our hands into the sink basin, fighting amiably over the single bar of soap until our hands were passably clean.

"Are you ever going to get a sonic sink like normal people?" Ierei asked as she stepped back and yanked a towel off the rack behind us. Faorrins didn't like washing with water when it could be avoided. Water left their fur a matted mess and it was difficult for them to dry themselves. More importantly, the smell of wet wolf was so unpleasant that even my mother would sometimes let Ierie skip washing before meals if we weren't particularly dirty.

"Only the desert clan uses those," I reminded her, ducking my head to scoop a handful of water on my neck. I'd learned that if I didn't scrub my face and neck until they were red, the adults would only send me back again, further delaying my meal.

"I was at Miri Deccol's house last week when my father went into the city, and they have them," Ierei told me.

"They're practically outclan anyway," I said as I finished washing. I shut off the water and reached back for the towel in Ierei's hand. She gave it to me, but when I brought it near my face, I saw that the whole thing was covered in fur. Turning, I held it up for her to look at.

"What?" she blinked.

"Nevermind," I sighed, balling up the towel. By the time I had chucked it down the chute, Ierie was already racing back to the kitchen. I ran after her, the soles of my boots pounding heavily against the worn wood floor. She beat me to the table anyway, and was already sliding to her knees in front of it when I came through the doorway. Without thinking, I dropped to the floor and skidded across the tiles. The maneuver brought me to a halt roughly at the same time that Ierie had settled herself, and I stuck out my tongue at her in satisfaction.

"Owen," my mother chided automatically.

I quickly pulling my tongue back into my mouth and mumbled an apology that was half in Ka'andesi the way I had spoken to my father outside, "Sorry, Uadi."

Mom shook her head, but there was a smile in her eyes.

"It wasn't all that long ago that we were pulling that trick, Sajani," remarked my aunt as she and Uncle Dannik entered from the interior of the compound. I was a little surprised that they were still here. Usually, if Ierei and I were late to lunch, they finished their meals and went back to work. Our homestead wasn't a working farm anymore—it hadn't been since my grandparents died—but Aunt Bee was the ranking Weaver in our district. She was always making medicines or out taking care of the sick and injured. Dad and Uncle Dannik had a machine shop behind the main compound where they fixed everything from droids to farm equipment to airspeeders. As Clan Chronicler, my mother had a little more time, but it was rare for everyone to linger at midday like this.

"Hush, Bee," Mom laughed softly, drawing my attention back to the conversation at hand. Ierei and I both turned toward my aunt, eager to hear more. I wasn't sure that I could really imagine my mother sliding across the kitchen floor on her knees.

Aunt Bee waved her hand dismissively at Mom, then swept her gaze over Ierei and I as she lowered herself to the floor. "Well, it was a little different. Owen's grandmother used to put the table up when weren't eating. You know, the way the clans used to in the travelling days. Well, Sajani could run in from the 'fresher and slide clear across the kitchen to the other side."

"Wow, Mom!" I cried in amazement.

"Will you show us, Aunt Sajani?" pleaded Ierei.

"No, I will not," my mother laughed.

"Come on, Sajani," Uncle Dannik joked as he joined the group at the table. "I'd pay to see that."

"I'll double whatever you're paying," Dad added.

"I'm sure you will," Mom sighed good-naturedly. Then without further comment, she picked up the oval-shaped loaf of bread from the center of the table, broke it, and passed one half to my father and the other to Aunt Bee.

Conversation lulled for a few minutes as my aunt murmured a soft prayer to thank the land that fed us and the Force that sustained us. Then she and Dad tore off pieces of the bread and placed them back on my mother's plate before taking some for themselves.

"Who has news?" asked Mom as the bread made its way around to Ierei and I.

"We do!" I exclaimed, wanting a chance to tell about the hawk before the grown-ups started trading whatever boring stories they had to share today. Ierei nodded in emphatic agreement. My parents shared an odd, quiet laugh, and we both frowned at them.

"All right, Owen, you first," Dad said with unusual gravity.

"We found a pair of nesting hawks—" I began.

"The big ones," added Ierei, then she looked at me and wrinkled her nose. "What do you call them?"

"_Ben'ya_ in our clan," I said, frowning thoughtfully. "I don't know what the other clans say."

Mom and Aunt Bee exchanged significant looks. Then Mom told us softly, "All the clans call them _Ben'ya_. We brought them with us from the Unknown Regions."

"Where were they, Owen?" my aunt asked in a tone she only used when she was acting as a Weaver.

I gave her the location as precisely as I could remember. She nodded crisply, needing only a moment or two to remember the particular homestead I mentioned. Then she asked, "Did you look in the nest?"

"Yes, _Ayadi,_ but we did everything the way you showed us," I replied.

"That's what took us so long getting back for lunch," added Ierei.

"Were there eggs?" Aunt Bee asked.

"Only one…" I bit my lip as the adults began to exchange glances. "What?"

"It's a good omen, isn't it Bee?" my father asked. I felt my eyes widen at the question. I shot a look at Ierei and saw that she had cocked her head to one side in confusion. My father liked the clan legends because they were good stories, but he didn't believe in omens the way that a lot of the old Ka'andesi did. Why would he care about something like that?

"A strong one," replied Aunt Bee, reaching squeeze my mother's arm.

That wasn't quite the same thing, but Mom smiled. She seemed happy with the answer, and Dad visibly relaxed. So, why did I suddenly feel so uncomfortable? What were they talking about anyway?

"Omen for what?" I asked.

"We have news, too, Owen," Mom told me.

"Okay…?"

"Son, you're going to be a brother soon," she said simply. And my slow, quiet existence crumbled and fell out from under me. I had no idea yet how much Ben would change me—change my life and the way I saw the galaxy—but even then I understood enough to realize that nothing in my house was ever going to be the way it had been a moment ago.


	4. The Question

This took longer than I thought to post. I had a migraine at the beginning of the month, so I got behind in everything!

* * *

_The friend who stays to share a meal is worth twice the cost of the food he's given. The one who stays to share your work is worth your blood._

—_Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples,_ as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear

I was surprised that Ierei stuck around after lunch. Usually, as soon as the dishes were cleared, she headed back out, either to play or to go home and study. I had chores to do in the afternoon, and after we'd been so late today, I didn't think it would be a good idea to rush through them the way I sometimes did when I knew she was waiting for me.

"Aren't you going home?" I asked over my shoulder as I did the dishes.

"No, my father's visiting the mountain den, so I can do what I want as long as I get all my assignments done by the time he gets back," she shrugged, fishing through the pockets of her violet jumpsuit.

"Are you going to help me dry these or just sit there?" I asked.

"You really want me to get my fur wet again?" she countered.

"I'm used to it," I told her.

She had just pulled a handful of brightly colored marbles out of her pocket, and she gave a loud sigh at my comment. I rolled my eyes. Ierei stared mournfully at the glossy glass spheres, but after a few seconds, she shoved them back into her pocket and got up to help me.

We didn't say much at first. She must have known that I was still mulling over the news that my parents had given me and the family's odd reaction to our hawk sighting. I liked to work things out in my head for a while before I talked about them, even with Ierei. She tended to just say whatever came into her head, and I could tell by the way she kept looking over at me that she was getting impatient.

Finally, she exploded, "Owen, are you going to tell me what you think about this baby thing or not?"

I glanced over my shoulder again to make sure that none of the adults were in earshot. When I was sure that no one else could hear us, I whispered, "I don't know yet."  
"What do you mean you don't know?" she cocked her head.

"Shhh!" I urged.

She wrinkled her nose at me. "What?"

"My parents think this a good thing," I replied, still whispering.

"So?" Ierei took the cue and lowered her voice.

"So, I'm probably s'posed to be all happy and stuff too," I explained.

"You're not?" she asked.

"I haven't decided yet," I told her.

Ierei thunked her head down on the counter in exasperation. "You're the only person I know who has to decide if he's happy."

"Well, I'm used to things the way they are," I said, shaking my head at her theatrics. "But all the other clan kids around have sibs, so it might be good. At least I'd be less weird."

"You'd still be weird."

"Thanks a lot," I said, splashing my hand into the sink to fling some of the soapy water at her.

She yipped and ducked out of the way. "Hey! This is the thanks I get for helping you?"

"I'm practicing for having a kid brother," I smirked.

"It could be a girl."

I wrinkled my nose. "Oh yeah."

"What's wrong with girls?" Ierei demanded.

"Nothing, as long as they're not your sister," I replied.

"That makes no sense," declared Ierei.

"Everybody I know says sisters are a pain," I said.

"Well, you should wait and make up your own mind!" she grumbled as I handed her the last plate.

"I may have to," I sighed. Then I turned back to the sink and pulled out the drain plug.

"Is there some clan rule about dishwashers, too?" Ierei asked as the water gurgled its way down the pipes.

I opened my mouth to say no, then I closed it again and frowned, confessing, "I don't know. I never heard of one, but almost nobody has one out here. Aunt Bee says they waste water."

"More than filling up the sink?" Ierei squinted as she slid the plate into the drying rack.

"I guess so. Never really thought about it," I said ponderously.

"You could have a sonic one…or is that like the 'we wash with water because we're not desert clan' thing?" she asked.

"I don't know," I repeated. "Anyway, it's not because we're _not desert clan._"

"Why then?" asked Ierei.

I took the damp towel from her and moved to hang it back on the bar beside the sink. Then I realized it was covered in fur and let out a long sigh. Tossing it down the chute, I climbed onto the counter and started rooting around in the cupboards for another one. I was short for my age, and I couldn't quite see what I was doing, so I had to rely mostly on my memory and sense of touch for anything I wanted up there.

In answer to Ierei's question, I repeated what I'd heard from my mother a million times. "It's because the more machines and stuff that you bring into a place, the more it changes the land everything that lives there."

"Plains clan has droids and farm equipment and stuff," remarked Ierei. "The towels are on your left."

"Thanks," I said, moving my hand further left. I touched towel and then fingered my way to the top of the pile, explaining as I went. "Well, machines are fine to have if you need them, like in the desert they have sonic stuff because water is scarce, and here we have farming stuff to help the work. But you can't just bring whatever you want to a place because it's easier. You have to think about how it affects everything first."

"Miri has one," Ierei commented.

"See what I mean about them?" I shook my head and leapt back to the kitchen floor. "Practically outclan."

"Why do you say it that way?" she asked. "I'm outclan, Owen."

"You're _supposed_ to be outclan," I said, giving her shoulder a little pat to show that I didn't hold it against her. Then I hung up the towel and ran for the courtyard. "C'mon, I have to finish the rest of my chores."

"Your dad and Uncle Dannik were outclan once too, you know," she yelled, after me.

"Doesn't matter what they were before," I called back. "Once you're clan, you're all clan."

"How can the Deccols be _practically outclan_ then?" argued Ierei.

I stopped short in the doorway, startled by the question. Ierei blindly kept going and ploughed into my back. Both of us flew forward and tumbled into the grass.

"Ow…" I groaned. "Watch where you're going!"

"Well, what did you stop for?" she huffed.

"I stopped to think!" I said, shoving her off me.

"You can't think and walk at the same time?" she asked, rolling onto all fours.

"Shut up, Ierei," I sighed, suddenly feeling a little grumpy.

"So what about the Deccols?" she asked.

"I don't know," I admitted grudgingly. Then I pushed myself to my feet and started around the path that led to the rear of the compound. Ierei trotted after me, not speaking, and after a minute or two of silence, I felt a small niggle of guilt. As much as she might annoy me, she _had_ stayed today. She knew that sooner or later, I'd want to talk about this baby situation.

"So, um, what do you think about the baby?" I asked awkwardly.

"What do you mean what do I think? It's your sister, not mine."

"Brother."

"Whatever."

"Well, do you think I should be happy?" I persisted.

"No," she said emphatically.

"Why not…?"

"Because human babies stink. They don't know how to use a 'fresher for years."

"We're not exactly human," I pointed out hopefully. Ka'andesi were a lot like humans, but each of the four clans had its own slight differences. Maybe one of the differences was better toilet training…

"Your dad is human," Ierei reminded me. "You don't even have normal spots. And you sure don't remember like a Ch'lliear."

I sighed. Ch'lliear, the plains clan, was known for its people having patterns of crescent-shaped spots on our skin, and my mother said that, compared to humans, we had much better memories. I looked like I had a bad case of freckles from the sides of my neck down to my ankles, but they didn't look anything like clan spot patterns. Most of the clan kids I knew could hear a story or learn a lesson once and remember it forever. I had to recite things over and over to myself, and sometimes I still mixed them up.

"Well, maybe I got more of my dad. This time, the Force will make up for it and the baby will get lots of spots and a good memory. And go to the 'fresher," I theorized.

"I…don't think it works that way, Owen," Ierei said slowly.

"Oh. _Great_."


	5. The Legend

_Some say that legends are more important than truth. Some say that truth is the greatest power in the galaxy. What if both were correct? My people say that our legends are the truths our souls know._

—_Seeing and Knowing: A Memoir of a World in Shadow,_ by Lared and Inalia Kenobi

Ierei and I planned to go back and watch the hawks when my chores were done, but no sooner had we finished pulling up weeds in the herb garden then the whole sky above us was split by a giant fork of lightning. We craned our necks to stare up at it, and by the time the thunder cracked in its wake, the bright blue expanse above us had darkened into a heavy, swirling mass of cumulonimbus clouds.

Groaning, we both sprang out of the dirt and ran for staircase on the side of the house. I took them two at a time; Ierei barreled after me on all fours, and we made it into my room just as the rain struck. Each of us grabbed one of the heavy shutters that guarded the balcony exit and pushed it closed against the stubborn wind, then Ierei leaned against them while I slid the bar into place.

"Owen, Ierei…?" Mom's voice drifted up to us from somewhere on the lower levels.

"We're in, Mom!" I shouted.

"All right. Don't go out looking for the hawks until the storm breaks," she told us.

"Yes, Mother," I rolled my eyes.

"What do you want to do now?" Ierei asked.

I shrugged. "Marbles?"

"Okay," she shrugged back, moving into the center of the room to set up the game.

I crossed to my bed and knelt beside it, flipping up the faded red, brown, and gold blanket so that I could worm my way underneath. I pulled out my now-dead ant farm, my rock collection, the seashells that Ierei's father had brought me back from the coast as a present, and my plant samples before I finally got my hands on the marbles—which were shoved about as far back as I could reach. Once I had them, I carefully slid everything else back in place and carried the plasteel box toward our playing field.

Ierei had set up her portable field projector, which was a small, white cylindrical device with three prongs that could be extended from the base to form a tripod. The legs kept the base itself off the ground, and the lens in the bottom produced a variety of different sized holographic circles. We could use the control settings on top to change the game rules—adding target zones with different point values and penalties or creating bullseye markers that worked the way a hole would if we were playing in the dirt.

"Keepsies," I said as I flopped down beside the circle and started to comb through what remained of my collection.

"Owen, are you sure…?" she wrinkled her nose at me.

"I want my aggie back," I said, gritting my teeth with determination. It was hard to believe that someone with a long claw on the end of each finger could be so good at shooting marbles, but Ierei beat me 2 for three most of the time. Last time it rained, she'd gotten best aggie.

"How about if you win I just give you the aggie back?" she suggested.

"No way," I shook my head.

She sighed heavily. "Okay."

We spent a few more minutes deciding on game rules and setting up the field. We had a standing rule that whoever had lost the last game got to shoot first. After we set up the mibs in the center of the circle, Ierei backed off and I crawled around, laboriously lining up my shot before I knuckled-down—and then I missed completely.

"I don't believe it!" I thumped my forehead against my arm in exasperation.

To my surprise, Ierei didn't laugh. In fact, her ears drooped a little, which was a sign of disappointment for a Faorrin. "Um."

"Nevermind," I said quickly. I would rather have her laugh at me than try to make me feel better.

She looked at me uncertainly for a second, then scampered forward to set up her shot. As she did, she asked me casually, "So, what were your parents talking about at lunch? About the hawks and omens and stuff?"

"Some old clan story, I guess. I can't keep them straight," I replied. I believed what my family taught me about keeping the land in balance—respecting everything that lived here and respecting the Force—but even though my Mom was a Clan Chronicler, I wasn't much good at remembering the legends and teaching stories.

Ierei's first shot knocked two of the marbles into the bullseye marker. I ran my hand over my face. She scrambled to position herself for another turn.

"You don't remember anything about it? Sounds like it was a big important legend," she prompted.

"Well," I frowned thoughtfully and sat back, drawing my knees up to my chest. "I remember that _Ben'ya_ sees things."

"Oh, that's exciting," Ierei quipped.

"Because the hawks can see so far when they fly," I sighed. "Ben'ya is the greatest of the hunting birds. He can see the farthest, but he isn't the biggest or the most beautiful, so he isn't proud. He sees what nobody else sees. If you watch him, you're supposed to learn what nobody else knows."

"What does that have to do with your sister?" she asked, purposely looking up at me as she flicked her shooter into the circle. She missed, of course.

"Brother!" I corrected sharply, uncoiling to get ready for my next shot. I didn't really care if she wanted to say the baby was a girl—well, not much anyway. Mostly, I was just annoyed that she was _cheating_ in order to lose, and I couldn't call her on it without starting a fight.

"Whatever."

"Anyway, it has nothing to do with him," I added, clenching my teeth in concentration as I took my shot. I got a hit on two of the mibs, but neither one hit a bullseye. Well, it was something anyway.

"I don't get it," Ierei said.

"Me neither. That's why I said I don't remember. I must be forgetting something or mixing the stories up," I explained.

"Oh," Ierei sat back on her haunches, watching me shoot. "Well, do you remember anything else?"

"Let me think," I said pensively. Ierei could gab while she did anything, but I had a hard time concentrating on my game if I also had to answer questions, especially about something I was sure I didn't remember in the first place.

Ierei nodded.

The next time I missed—which, for once, took long enough that I didn't feel like a complete numbskull—I crawled back to where I had been sitting and rattled a handful of newly-won marbles in my palm. Ierei made a show of scoping out her shot, but she kept looking up at me instead of paying attention to the field.

I continued rattling the marbles and chewed on my lip. When I'd gathered my thoughts, I said, "You know how the birds go away in the fall?"

"Uh huh," Ierei nodded again.

"Well, the one story I remember says that _Ben'ya_ flies the farthest. He goes where no one else goes, sees what no one else sees, and learns what no one else has learned. But he always returns to the land of the Ka'andesi, where he was born. One autumn, he flew away and went farther than he had ever gone before, and when he came back in the spring, he brought news of the new home that the people were waiting for. I think it's talking about when the clans came here from the Unknown Regions. But there's nothing in the story about an egg or a baby."

Ierei wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "Your mom said that the people brought _Ben'ya_ with them when they came to this planet. He must've been important before he found it."

"C'mon, Ierei. The hawk didn't _really_ fly away and find a new planet. It's not possible."

"Why not?" she challenged.

"Because a hawk can't breathe in space!" I insisted.

"Well, how did the Ka'andesi find the planet then?" she wanted to know.

"How do I know? It was like fifteen-_thousand_ years before I was born!" I sighed.

"Well, I think _Ben'ya_ flew here and found it," she told me with a firm nod.

"Terrific," I rolled my eyes. "Maybe you should be the Clan Chronicler when you grow up."

"Are you gonna be the Plains Healer?" she asked.

"I don't know. You have to study an awful lot," I observed. "Plus I don't think I could live in the den more than a week."

"True," she agreed. "So, how are we going to find out about the omen?"

"Why does it matter so much?" I squinted at her. "It's a Ka'andesi thing."

"I'm just interested."

"Why though? I mean, why this one? Clanspeople talk about omens and animal stories all the time," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but not your dad. That's just weird. If he thinks it's important, it must really be important."

"Well…" I mused. She did have a point. And anything that was important to my dad was bound to be important to me. So, maybe we should find out. "There's gotta be something else—an older story or something I don't know about."

"Can we ask your mom?" she suggested.

"Uh-uh!" I shook my head vehemently.

"Why not?

"Because it's too weird!" I declared.

"So, then what do we do?" she pestered.

"Um…"

"Maybe we can ask _Ben'ya._"

"What?"

"You said that if people watch him, they learn what nobody else knows, right?" she reminded me.

"Ierei, it's a legend. _Ben'ya_ isn't a person," I said flatly.

"But we've got a whole family of hawks out there, and we were going to watch them anyway!" she cried.

"And you think that if we stare at them long enough, we're going to figure out what they have to do with my brother?"

"Sister!"

"Whatever!"


	6. The Departure

_The danger of loving tradition too much is that we forget that life is change; the folly of abandoning our pasts is that we lose ourselves. Can one value the old ways while embracing the future? The answer, perhaps, lies with the Great Hawk. Ben'ya flies far, but he always returns to the people and the land of his birth._

—_Seeing and Knowing: A Memoir of a World in Shadow,_ by Lared and Inalia Kenobi

So, Ierei and I spent the whole spring and summer watching the hawks. She was right to say that I would have watched them anyway, but I thought the whole idea of waiting for the birds to give us some great revelation about my brother was pretty much a waste of time. I couldn't convince Ierei, though, and as the months passed, I not only gave up trying, but I found myself caught up in her mission of discovery.

We never did ask my mother what the omen was, but she was best person on the plains to ask for Ka'andesi stories. Not only was she a Chronicler, which meant that she knew them all, she had a way of taking a story that we had a heard a thousand times and making it feel new and alive. We plied her for anything and everything that mentioned _Ben'ya_. After a while, she asked why were so interested in the great hawk. I told her as innocently as I could that I wanted to learn the stories better so I could tell them to my brother. I wasn't sure whether she bought that statement or not. The knowing smile she gave us seemed to say that she knew I wasn't being completely honest, but then she ran her fingers through my hair and caught my chin between her thumb and forefinger in a way that meant she was happy with me.

None of the hawk legends mentioned a baby, though Ierei noticed that when the stories mentioned finding eggs or newborn hawks, weird things started to happen. I remembered what my aunt had said—the single egg was a _strong_ omen. That didn't make it a _good_ one like my father had asked, and the stories didn't usually turn out so well. So we still couldn't understand why my folks took the egg we found that first day as a good sign.

Later in the spring, there was another egg, but only those two. Aunt Bee said that it might take a few years before the hawk pair started breeding normally. They were still adjusting and settling in to their new environment. I wondered how their bodies _knew_ something like that, but there was about as much chance of figuring out the answer to that question as there was of learning about my brother by watching birds feed and care for their young.

Both nestlings survived and grew strong. By mid-summer, the younger one began to out-fly the elder. I hid in the tallgrass for hours with my electrobinoculars and one of the special paper books that the Chroniclers and Weavers used to record wildlife observations for the district record. They were treated with a special solution that kept whatever was written in them perfectly preserved, and always had a faint but lingering odor like cinnamon. I liked them much better than filmiplast or datapads. There was a room in our house full of nothing but old record books like this. They told the story of our family and the land on which we lived, going back thousands of years. My mother had once shown me the very first one—written by an ancestor of mine called Naaira when we first came to the place where my house now stood. The drawings and gentle script on those pages was as clear and vibrant to my eyes as it must have been on the day that Naaira wrote them. I had been afraid to touch the book then—afraid that if my fingers touched something so ancient it would crumble to dust beneath them. Now, when I huddled in the same grass that my first mother had taken shelter in, writing on the same paper that she used, I felt that I _was_ touching them.

I must have drawn a thousand pictures of that hawk family. When the summer's heat finally began to burn off into dry red-gold autumn, I knew all four of them by sight. Ierei spent more time yapping than she did studying the birds, so I didn't know how she ever planned on learning anything from them. I didn't mind, though. Even if she _did_ talk more in one day than I did in a week, we were partners. I always missed her chattering on the days when she couldn't get away from the den. The only problem was that a gabby girl would drive most wildlife away.

In the past, whenever I did any animal watching, I had made sure that she knew ahead of time, and she steered clear of me except to meet up for lunch. This was at least _supposed_ to be a joint project, and I would have felt bad telling her to leave me alone while I watched the birds. She did _try_ to keep quiet. She just wasn't very good at remembering to whisper, and she didn't have a very high-functioning brain-to-mouth filter.

The four Ka'andesi clans had a hand-language that they used at Gatherings or in other situations when people from more than one clan had to communicate quickly. Our spoken tongues had similiarities—like the words for mother and father or the way that everyone called the great hawk _Ben'ya_—but there were big differences too. The Chroniclers had kept the hand-language the same so that all four clans remembered that they came from the same place and shared the same blood. Ierei knew a little of it because she spent so much time with my family. To keep her from frightening the hawks, I taught her more of it and made a game out of practicing hand-talk instead of speaking.

My mother said very little about it, but when we practiced at the house, I would sometimes catch her grinning. I didn't know why it pleased her so much to see us practicing hand-signs, but it gave me a warm feeling in my chest. The more I saw it, the more I wanted to teach Ierei. She was good at it, too, and by the time that the hawks left for the winter, Mom pronounced that she was as fluent in Ka'andesi hand-signs as any clanborn girl her age.

The pleasure I took in that accomplishment did very little to offset the gaping hole that I felt in my heart when our hawk family took flight that last day. The stand of tallgrass where we did most of our observation had turned a rich copper by then. Days were shorter, and the wind that whipped through the plains had a definite chilly tang, heralding the approach of the cold season.

"That's it," I said softly, setting down my electrobinoculars. I sighed, taking a long last look at the drawing on the page in front of me.

Ierei lay on her stomach beside me, and she turned, wrinkling her nose. "What's it?"

"They're gone," I said, gesturing at the shrinking specks in the sky above us.

"For good?"

"Well, for winter. Mother and Father will come back next year. We may never see the sibs again," I explained.

Ierei's ears drooped. "Why not?"

I smiled a little. "Because they'll mate and build their own nests someplace."

"Oh…" she nodded. "Well—how do you know they're really gone for winter?"

"Just do," I shrugged, closing my book.

Ierei cocked her head. "You mean like with the Force?"

"I don't think so," I frowned. I spent my life watching animals on the plains. There were a million tiny clues that told me when they were getting to migrate or burrow for the winter. I read them the way that Ierei could already look at a sick person and, more often than not, know what was wrong. Maybe it was the Force somehow. I didn't really understand how it worked. I just knew it was there. My mother had it a little, and I suspected that my father did too, although he didn't like it if anyone said that.

Ierei studied me for a while, seeming to consider the question. It gave me a creepy feeling, and I suddenly wondered how the hawks and other animals I watched on the plains would have felt if they knew there were people staring at them and writing down their hunting patterns or social behaviors. Just when I started to squirm, she gave her head a hard, definitive shake, ears flapping.

"It's not the Force," she said.

"Okay," I shrugged. I'd seen her do stuff like that before. I guess it was part of her Plains Healer training or something. She tried to explain it to me, but it didn't make much sense, so I had stopped asking. I just knew I could believe her.

"So," she asked, tapping the cover of my book with her claw. "Did you figure out the omen?"

"Me?" I blinked.

"Yeah?"

"I thought you were trying to figure out the omen!" I cried.

"Well, I _was,_" she nodded.

"So, why are you asking me?"

"Because I guess I didn't figure it out," she said, as if the answer should have been perfectly obvious.

"The only thing I figured out is how hawks find food and take care of little hawks," I sighed.

"The _Ben'ya_ stories didn't tell you _anything_?" she prodded.

"They told me that my people like to do things the hard way," I rolled my eyes.

"Wha…?" her nose twitched.

"I mean why can't anybody write these stories _down_!" I grumbled. "Not everybody has a memory like my mom. How much easier would it have been if we had a _book_ or a datapad or something that had _all_ the stories anybody _ever_ told about _Ben'ya_ all in one place? Then maybe we could have found out if we could look at them all together instead of bugging Mom for months and months to tell us more."

"You know, Owen, you have a point," Ierei told me, sounding surprised.

"Thank you!" I nodded firmly.

"Why don't you write them down?"

"Because I'd have to be able to remember them all first."

"Oh, yeah…" she nodded. "Well. Let's go get some lunch."

I thumped my head on the cover of the book.

"What?"


	7. The Caretaker

_Speak without thinking and you will be bitten; think without speaking and you may be swallowed._

_—The Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples, as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear._

This time, we were actually early for lunch. Aunt Bee was tromping into the courtyard about the same time that we arrived. Her knee-high boots were entirely coated in mud, her vest was gone, and her typically neat braid was all loose, with fly-aways sticking out all over her head. Even the complex strings of Weaver's beads which usually decorated her hair were gone.

"What _happened_?" I cried.

"There was trihorn stuck in the creek out by the Gowans'," she huffed. "No one was home."

"You should have come and got us!" I said.

"It might have broken its leg by the time I found you out there," she shook her head, doggedly continuing her way into the kitchen.

"Bee!" my mother's sharp tone of warning stopped all three of us in the doorway.

"What?" she blinked.

"I just cleaned the floors this morning!" Mom told her.

"Oh…" Aunt Bee hurriedly stepped back and kicked off her boots, still talking as she did so. "You know, you shouldn't be cleaning the floors anyway, Sajani. You're six months along now, and this is a ris—"

"Someone else is going to do it with you gone all day and the boys getting ready for a run to Coruscant?" Mom interrupted. She turned away from the food prep station where she had been stirring a pot of soup, and one hand moved protectively over her swollen belly. Her tone was quiet and reasonable, but her blue eyes flashed dangerously in Aunt Bee's direction. I felt my chest tighten as I realized that the two women were preparing to square off.

They rarely fought, but when they did, the whole plain soon felt it. I looked back and forth at them in confusion, trying to figure out what they were really saying—or maybe what they _weren't_ saying. It wasn't like Mom to interrupt someone, and I knew plenty of Ka'andesi women who washed floors and did other kinds of housework when they were pregnant. What was different here?

Aunt Bee took a breath, and I could feel the storm gathering. Ierei nudged me with her elbow. Swallowing, I stepped forward and inserted myself between them.

"I will," I said.

Both women paused. Their eyebrows rose and they looked at me with a clear question. I realized that I'd just voluntarily added to my own load of chores, and I bit back a long sigh.

"I will," I repeated firmly. "From now on, I'll scrub the floors and whatever else Aunt Bee says."

They glanced at one another, and some kind of silent exchange passed between them. The tension melted, and I let out a small, relieved puff. My mother's mouth quirked upward in amusement. My fate was now sealed, and I knew it.

"You heard him," Mom winked.

"And we have Ierei as a witness," Aunt Bee nodded.

I groaned.

Aunt Bee started to say something else, then she looked down at her disheveled, muddy clothes and sighed. "We'll have to discuss the specifics later, Owen. I need a shower."

"You two can wash your hands in here," said Mom, waving toward the kitchen sink. "Then the table needs setting."

Aunt Bee bustled off toward the 'fresher. Ierei leaned her board in the corner by the open doorway, and I set my book down in front of it. Once our things were settled, we trooped to the sink and scrubbed up, a process which was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that my mother seemed to have three sets of eyes—one for the cooking, one for Ierei, and the best one of all trained on me.

Just about the time we were finishing, Dad and Uncle Dannik came barreling into the kitchen from their shop. They were both sweaty and covered in brownish-black grease from whatever pieces of heavy equipment they had been working on that morning. Fall was harvest time on the plains, which always meant that their business picked up. Harvesters, worker droids, and other equipment broke down or wore out, needing quick patch jobs that could tide the farmers over until the cold season hit. Anybody with a working farm could fix basic problems by themselves, but credits were scarce on the plains, and that meant the machinery had to last much longer than it was usually meant to. My father and Uncle Dannik had a way of being able to make things work when no one else could, and they could turn a repair job out again faster than the farmers could since they didn't have to spend daylight hours in the fields.

They jostled one another good naturedly until they reached the interior door, then Uncle Dannik headed for the downstairs 'fresher and Dad did a quick about face to dart for the second floor. It only took a beat for Uncle Dannik to hear the shower running and realize he'd been had. Spinning around, he shouted after my father.

"One of these days, I'm just gonna trip you, little brother!"

"I'd see you coming, Dannik!" Dad yelled back.

"You know, I think he would," Uncle Dannik winked at Mom. He moved up beside her in a few quick strides and grabbed the arched handle of the old, coral colored soup pot, carrying it back to the table.

"Of course he would," Mom said easily. "Be careful; your hands are dirty."

"I know, I know," he sighed.

Ierei and I giggled.

"What?" he arched his eyebrow at us.

"Nothing, Uncle Dannik," we chorused, busying ourselves with the task of setting the table.

"Good," he half-laughed, returning to take the bread, cheese, and salad to the table in turn.

When the dishes were all laid out, Ierei and I each took one of my mother's arms and helped her down to the table. The baby made it hard for her to get up and down, and I didn't like seeing her struggle. Ierei was a Healer in training, and she had gotten pretty vocal about her feelings toward this particular Ka'andesi tradition in the last few months.

"This would be a lot easier if you had a big table and chairs, Aunt Sajani," she declared. In the past, I would have just put the comment down to the fact that she wasn't a Clan girl. Even if she was my best friend, she didn't really understand our traditions. Ever since this baby had started making things so difficult for Mom, I had wondered if maybe she was right. After all, why was a table really that big of a deal?

"This is the _Ch'lliear_ way, Ierei," Mom shook her head. "This was my mother's table, and it will be Owen's table after me unless I have daughter."

"Miri Deccol has a big table," Ierei grumbled. "Chairs are way more comfortable than pillows, and nobody has to put them away when you're done eating."

"The Deccols' get more outclan every year!" I objected automatically. I couldn't help it; even if I _did_ agree with Ierei, I hated the way she compared our family to people like that.

"Who cares if it makes things easier?" Ierei glared at me. "Your mom shouldn't be sitting on the dumb floor like this, Owen!"

"Enough!" Uncle Dannik's voice rang out over both of ours. We shrank back in surprise. Dad was kind of a blowhard. He bellowed and stomped around, generally acting like a spring storm, and then he got over it. Uncle Dannik, on the other hand, rarely raised his voice except when he was joking with Dad the way he had when they came inside. I think I had seen him shout twice in my life before this afternoon, and neither of those occasions had ended well for the person on the receiving end.

My mother held up her hands for peace, looking from side to side at Ierei and I. She spoke mildly, but the set of her jaw and the slight narrowing of her brown eyes told me that this would be the last word spoken on the subject.

"Both of you respect this table. You know better than to bicker when a meal is laid out. Ierei, Ka'andesi women have carried children and sat to table this way for thousands of years. Yes, it's less convenient, but that is not the only consideration. Owen, Miri Deccol's mother is still my friend. She practically grew up in this house, the same as Ierei now. In fact, I think that when I go into the city to have this baby, you should stay with the Deccols instead of at the den with Ierei."

My jaw dropped.

"Can I stay there too?" Ierei asked eagerly.

"Ierei!" I cried.

"To keep you company!" she insisted.

"You'll have to ask your father," Mom told her, stifling a laugh.

I grit my teeth on the urge to complain that this wasn't funny. I could feel my face turning red with frustration until my father's heavy footfalls sounded on the stairs. I whirled around, racing to him for support.

"Okodi!" I wailed, running through the parlor to the foot of the stairs.

"What? What's wrong?" he asked as he reached the bottom, his voice alarmed.

Reverting to Ch'lliear in my distress, I told him, "Mom says I have to stay with the Deccols when the baby is born!"

Dad paused in surprise, obviously having expected another kind of problem. Then he frowned at me and stepped off the bottom stair. I swallowed and bit my lip, suddenly wondering if I had been wrong to expect him to take my side.

When he spoke, it was also in our clan tongue, so I knew that there would be no chance of argument. "If your mother says it, then it is so. And this way you'll be making an informed statement if you decide to call the Deccols outclan again."

_Great. Somebody remind me to keep my big mouth shut next time._


	8. The Secret

_Be careful with secrets. Sometimes there is more danger in the keeping of them than in the telling._

_—The Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples, as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear._

We weren't allowed to eat until Uncle Dannik got out of the shower. Ierei's stomach kept growling, and she stared at the bowl of peaches in the center of the table, licking her chops in a way that I would have found funny if I'd been in a better mood. No one, including Ierei, seemed to care very much whether I was happy to be shipped off to the Deccols' while my mother gave birth. So, I wasn't surprised that, once everyone was finally seated at the table, no mention was made of the situation. As far as my family was concerned, everything was perfectly normal.

It was Aunt Bee's turn to break bread, and she looked directly at me when she asked who had news. I knew that she wanted to hear something about the hawks and whether they'd left on their migratory flight yet, but I was so irritated that I was determined not to say anything at all. I clamped my jaw shut and stared at my soup bowl. There was brief pause where I could sense everyone's eyes on me, but it didn't last long. That was the way things worked. Unless I was _really_ in trouble, the adults would just ignore me when I tried to defy them. In a way, it was worse than being yelled at. The more I kept up a stint of rebellion, the more I was ignored, until ultimately I began to feel invisible and then finally caved and started to behave again.

I wasn't ready to give in yet, though, so I held my tongue. I half expected Ierei to start chattering about the birds anyway. She knew why I was being bad, and even if she didn't understand about outclan traitors like the Deccols, she wasn't mean-spirited. She tried to stick by me, just like I stuck by her. The problem was that brain-to-mouth filter of hers. She'd start talking before she realized what she was doing, and the next thing she knew, she'd have spilled everything I didn't want to say.

For once, though, she managed to keep quiet. After a few seconds, the grown-ups moved on to talking about the people they'd seen today and how the preparations for the Coruscant run were coming. I ate in silence, trying not to look as if I was paying attention. That side of Dad and Uncle Dannik—the smugglers who ran weapons and other contraband in and out of the Core Worlds—was so different that I couldn't help but be fascinated, even though I didn't really like being cooped up on ships or trapped in cities that were so crammed with buildings and people that a plains-bred boy couldn't breathe. I knew all of their contacts by name and reputation, if not what they really looked like. I could tell people all the goods and cargo that they would carry, all the ones they wouldn't, and what their reasons were. I _wouldn't_ tell such a thing, of course, but I _could have_. I could reconstruct the routes they took; knew all the places that they liked to lay low if things got hot; I even knew the going black market rates for everything they handled. Part of me wanted to ask to go along—just once, just to say I had—but the rest of me was still too upset.

Eventually, the conversation turned onto a topic that filled me with a completely different kind of fascination: Tellenda, the pirate captain. His people now inhabited the spaceport city of Nor Galis where our ships were docked. I'd seen him once, when I'd gone into the city with Mom to get my eyes checked. He was a thin, hard-looking man with white-blonde hair who wore some kind of military-style uniform. He had a couple of bodyguards or something who dressed the same way, and they saluted and called him "sir" like they were soldiers. I knew that he didn't like my father or Uncle Dannik. They'd had some run-ins with him, both in the city and in space, and even though the adults in my family all kept their faces covered in Nor Galis, the way he stared at Mom frightened me. It was as if he'd somehow recognized her, even though the Ka'andesi head coverings made her completely anonymous.

He was like one of the predators I watched on the plains. One look at him was enough to tell me how dangerous he was. I knew better than to get close, and I never _ever_ wanted to be alone in a room with him, but in the same way that a mountaincat's deadly grace could hold me in thrall while it took down a trihorn, Tellenda could hold my mind hostage for hours.

My parents had often talked about a time before the pirates came, but they'd been there for as long as I could remember. Although the worst ones spent most of their time away on their ships, anybody with an important job in Nor Galis was either a mid-level crew member in the pirate fleet, a pirate's relative, or a local who'd sold out for credits and protection. They'd carved out a nice little niche for themselves, hidden away out here where even the Hutt crimelords who ran so much of the Outer Rim Territories couldn't find them. No one I knew _liked_ them, but kids whispered about them.

_I saw Tellenda shoot a guy right outside the casino!_

_He looked right at me!_

_Two pirates came in my grandpa's shop! I had to load supplies for them!_

Now, the tariffs and docking fees that the pirates imposed on legitimate shippers—or at least on anyone operating without their direct sanction—were drastically cutting into our profit margins. Dad groused that it was extortion and called the pirates a bunch of no good scum dredged up from underneath a Hutt's fingernails.

_I didn't even know Hutts_ had _fingernails!_ I thought, biting my tongue to keep from speaking the words aloud.

Everyone seemed to agree with him, but nobody talked about whether we should pay the fees or not. I wondered why we went along with it—why none of the Ch'lliear raised a hand to throw the pirates off our homeworld. Even if our clan wasn't strong enough by itself, the others would help. There were inter-clan Gatherings every few years. The Clan Councils had to know about the problem by now. Yet, I realized that no one _ever_ spoke about ousting Tellenda.

A chill went up my back. My people loved their freedom more than anything else. What was the pirate holding over them?

As soon as that question dawned on me, the rest of my meal was dull and tasteless. The conversation passed in a haze around me. A couple of times, I caught Ierei staring at me with a worried expression, but I couldn't explain.

I finished eating as quickly as I could, then I _had_ to break my silence to ask to be excused. My mother gave permission with no mention of my behavior at the table, and I slunk off to do my chores with a red face.

Ierie followed me outside with her repulsorboard tucked under her arm. "Owen…" she started.

I spun around, suddenly angry. If she said one thing about the pirates, started plaguing me with whys that I had no answers for, I was going to pop her one. "What?"

She blinked and stepped back, seeming to shrink. "Are you okay?"

I swallowed, instantly ashamed of myself. "Yeah. I just—I don't want to stay in the city. I don't like it there. I'm sorry, Ierei."

"It's all right. You, um, want me to stay and help with your chores?" she offered.

"Isn't your father home?"

"Yeah…but he won't mind. If I tell him you needed me to stay," she opened her mouth a little in a Faorrin gesture of goodwill.

"Nah," I shook my head and looked away, staring out toward the wide expanse of sky where the hawks had flown off earlier that day. "I want to be by myself a while. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay," she agreed hesitantly. "Be well, Owen."


	9. The Heritage

_Ka'andesi carry their heritage wherever the wind takes them. They might as well do so with pride._

_—The Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples, as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear._

I dragged my feet over my afternoon chores, taking as long as I possibly could. I wanted to think, and I didn't want to have to look at my mother. I couldn't figure out yet whether I was more ashamed of my own behavior or of the way that my people seemed willing to knuckle under to the pirates. I'd never thought much about how Tellenda affected anyone. Nor Galis was almost a whole day's ride from our house by speeder. It was full of beings from all over the quadrant: drifters, gamblers, smugglers, thieves. Even the few honest traders and travelers had nothing to do with me. They were outclan, or if they had Ka'andesi blood, they were like the Deccols. They traded our traditions and the trust we had with the land for box-like dwellings in skinny skyscrapers, and they cared more for their comfort than for what they did to the ground or the water or the animals they forced out. Our clan name, Ch'lliear, meant _People of the Plains_. As far as I was concerned, anybody who chose to live in a city wasn't one of us anymore. If I ever stopped to think about the way the pirates made their lives difficult, I figured it was their own fault for staying in the city.

Suddenly, I had to contend with the knowledge that the pirates' influence didn't end at the city limits. Tellenda coiled the planet like a snake, and when he bit down, his poison spread through the ground. It would touch the city first, but it would flow out from there, to the plains, the savannah, the mountains and maybe even the desert beyond if someone didn't stop him. I would have expected my family to be the first to challenge him. Mom and Aunt Bee were keepers of the Clan ways. Dad and Uncle Dannik—real men of the plains—wouldn't brook anyone telling them what to do or where they could go. What good did it do for them to argue with Tellenda or gripe about "blood money" if they weren't going to _do_ anything? It was a hard thing for a boy to realize that the people who carried his world on their backs were not infallible.

When my chores were finished, I took my record book and slipped into the overgrown meadow behind the compound. It was a huge, wild place, where the flowers and herbs that we cultivated in the gardens ran free, mingling with the tallgrass and the hardier plants that had fended for themselves for as long as the plains had been alive. The grass grew so high that I couldn't see over the top of it, and all year long, the air was laced with the light but comforting cinnamon aroma of the _telba_ trees that lined its edges and rose up through the grass at rough intervals.

I walked for a while, then picked one of the old trees and settled with my back against the trunk. As usual, I had found no answers to any of the questions that roiled around in my head. I sighed quietly and flipped open the cover of my book to run my hand over the smooth, soft pages inside. I was beginning to wonder what people meant when they talked about finding wisdom by watching the animals and growing things. For all the time I spent studying these hawks, I thought I should have at least been able to figure out why everyone acted so strange about the baby my mother was carrying. If not that, then surely I should know what power Tellenda had over the clans.

Everything in my life seemed to be moving. People I had known to be one thing were becoming something else. Things I had taken to be unchangeable truths—like the fact that the Deccol family was no longer really like mine—were being called into question. A baby was coming. After six months, I still wasn't really sure what would change when he got here, but I knew enough to realize that my parents wouldn't have so much time for me. There would be constant racket; messes to clean up that weren't even my fault; and Ierei continued to insist that human babies stank.

I knew she liked to exaggerate. Some of the other clan kids I knew seemed to like their siblings. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It was just that, if the baby _had_ to show up now, why did everything else have to be going crazy at the same time?

I shook my head and sighed, shifting my attention to the drawings of my hawk family. The yellow sunlight that reflected off the paper deepened as I studied them, slowly but steadily darkening to gold, and then to red. I watched again as the nestlings grew strong, took their first wobbly flights, learned to hunt, and finally flew away. They were a lot like me, I realized. Even if the pattern of their lives was the same one that their ancestors had followed for thousands of years, once they left the warmth and safety of the nest, life carried them forward. I wondered if they ever just wanted to hide in the grass for a few hours.

I was still pondering that question when I heard the rustle of approaching footsteps. I set down the book and shifted my weight so that I could peer through the giant, spear-shaped slats of grass.

The rich mauve fabric of my mother's dress flashed past me, heading in the direction of the shop. I frowned. This close to dusk, Dad and Uncle Dannik would be coming in soon. Why would she go out to see them? Unless something else was going on…

I waited until she was far enough ahead that she wouldn't hear me following her, then crept through the grass. The shop was at the far end of the meadow. Voices carried far over the flat land of the plains, so I didn't need to get that close before I heard them. When I did, I stopped short, breath catching in my throat.

"…don't want you to take Owen with you," my mother said with an angry edge to her voice.

"He's more than old enough. When Dannik and I were his age—"

"When you and Dannik were ten, you didn't have a choice, Fox. Owen does," Mom interrupted.

"There is another side to the boy's heritage, Sajani. He is not just a clan child!" Dad said sharply.

"The life of a smuggler is not a heritage. It's a choice," Mom argued.

"Except that you're not giving him one," countered Dad. "My son has the right to see me for who I am."

"It's _not_ who you are, Fox! Look at this shop. This is who you are. You built it; you and Dannik sweat blood here to help save this land. You took a clan name, and you use it even in Core Worlds. Few men _born_ to our people will do that. No one even knows Lared Kenobi anymore. You've all but erased him. Why can't you let him die?" she asked with a pleading note in her voice.

"I told you when we married that I wasn't going to give up smuggling. I don't see you complaining when the money comes in!" shot Dad.

"That isn't fair," my mother's voice went cold. "I have never asked you to give up smuggling. I am asking you not to drag our children into it with you and equate it with their blood heritage. You are Ka'andesi, the same as I am. It doesn't matter where you were born."

There was a long, heavy silence. I waited, slowly and painfully exhaling, then drawing in another breath. I was terrified that they would hear me even though I knew I was too far away.

"Another year," said my father with hard finality. "Then, if Owen wants to come with us, he will."

"Let this run go, then," Mom said. "Or let Dannik take it alone. There's no reason for you to go now. In the winter, maybe, when the harvests are over. Not now with Tellenda—"

"We need the money, Sajani. You know we do," Dad insisted.

"We'll make do," Mom assured him.

"Not with the baby coming. I need to be here this winter, and I want you in the medcenter," Dad said stubbornly.

"The baby is fine, Fox. And so am I—"

"That may very well be," interjected Dad. "But you are going to have this child in the city. I don't want you giving birth out here again, with no one but Bee to help you—"

"Shh!" Mom jumped in suddenly, her voice dropping. "Owen."

"What? I didn't hear him…"


	10. The Risk

_A wise Ka'andesi learns that his mother is not to be trifled with._  
_—The Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples, as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear._

I scrambled back on my knees and elbows for a few yards, making sure that I was well out of their sight before I got to my feet. As fast as I could, I ran back to the _telba_ tree and scooped up my book. Then I bolted back to the compound and took the stairs two at a time up to my room. Once I got the doors shut, I threw myself down on my bed and buried my nose in the records I'd drawn.

A few minutes passed, and I began to hope that they wouldn't come looking for me. It wasn't that I was afraid of being punished. I hadn't been eavesdropping on purpose—or at least not because I wanted to catch them in a fight—but I didn't even know what to think of the things I'd heard. The last thing I wanted was for them to come in here and try to explain it to me, or tell me not to worry about Mom.

I didn't think I really wanted to run guns or glitterstim with Dad and Uncle Dannik, either. Until now, I always thought it was something he did for extra money. The shop didn't earn a steady living. What we did get was as likely to be bartered goods as it was to be hard cash, and although my mother made a little selling clan jewelry, we couldn't live on that either. We could hunt for the table, grow vegetables, and make most of what we needed, but there were still some things we had to buy outright.

Last year, we'd gotten stuck with a big load of high-powered blaster carbines and illegal explosives because some rich Core-worlder tried to pay us off in Republic credits. I guess things had been a little tight since then, but usually smuggling was enough to get us everything we needed, plus a little extra besides. I wasn't surprised to hear Dad say we needed the run. It would get us back to normal again—or it would have, if there wasn't going to be another kid around in three months. What surprised me was that he _wanted_ to go. He didn't do it because it paid well. He did it because he was a smuggler. How could I tell him that I wasn't—that the only place I really wanted to be was here on the plains?

Unfortunately, just about the time that I decided no one was going to come looking for me, my mother knocked on the door. I sighed. Closing the record book, I swung my feet to the floor and sat up, but I kept the tan cover clutched close to my chest.

"Come in," I said reluctantly.

She pushed open the door and tried to slide inside, but it was really more like a waddle. I felt a moment of faint amusement until the door shut behind her. Then she came over and sat beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder.

"It's been a long day for you, hasn't it?" she asked sympathetically.

I grunted.

"Are you okay?"

I shrugged.

"Owen…" she began again, biting her lip. "It's not that I think you're not old enough to go with your father. I—"

"Mom, I don't care about smuggling," I interrupted.

She nodded and drew in a breath. "Well. Your father is only worried about the baby and I because we've tried to have another child for a long time. I don't think our two species are quite as alike as we look, and sometimes that makes things more difficult."

"Aunt Bee is worried too. Even Ierei understood," I glared up at her.

"Ierei is special, Owen. The Faorrins say that among them a Healer is born as much as made. But she's still young, and she has a lot of training to go through. She senses that there could be trouble. It doesn't mean there will be," she smoothed her hand over my back.

"You still could've told me," I grumbled.

"Told you what? That your father is worried? He's this baby's father too. And Aunt Bee is a Weaver. One of her jobs is to bring healthy babies into the Clan. I haven't been keeping anything from you. You're a Ka'andesi. Birth and death have been all around you since before you could even walk. Why would I treat my son as anything other than a fellow clansman? If I was sick, or the baby was not healthy, do you really believe I would keep that a secret?"

"Then why did you argue with Aunt Bee today? And why did you warn Dad to be quiet when you knew I was listening?" I challenged.

My mother's eyebrows rose, and a stern note came into her voice. "I could ask you what you were doing sneaking around in the grass listening. We'll let that drop for the moment, but I want you to remember this: when you make up your mind about something, be certain that you have all of the information."

I gulped and nodded.

"When someone is afraid, his fear can color everything he sees. Every shadow hides a threat. When I found out that I was going to have a baby, I told Dad and Aunt Bee that unless there was clear evidence of a medical problem, I didn't want _anyone_ to act like there was one in front of you. _Not_ because I thought I needed to protect you from the possibility that I could die, but because I know what it feels like to be afraid of losing your mother. I didn't want you to go through the same thing without a real reason."

"But you _could_. There was a trihorn one year who had nothing wrong with her and she died!" I cried, suddenly agitated as the import of what she was saying sunk in.

Mom pulled me closer to her and hugged me. "Birth and death are really two halves of the same thing, son. There's always some risk involved with having a child, but I have a Clan Weaver right here taking care of me. Not to mention you, and Ierei, and your father. I'm going to have the baby in the city where it's as safe as it possibly can be. I wouldn't have even tried to have another child if I thought it was _that_ dangerous, Owen. I don't want to leave you any more than you want me to go."

"Okay," I nodded, leaning forward to rest my head on her belly. She ran her fingers lightly through my hair, and I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of her wildflower perfume. We stayed like that for a few minutes, and I felt my tension and fears start to melt away. Then, abruptly, something in her stomach smacked against my cheek.

"Hey!" I jerked away, staring at it. Then I looked up at her worriedly. "Wh-what was that?"

"That's the baby," Mom winked.

I frowned. "What does he want?"

"Probably just saying hello," Mom replied.

"Oh…" I looked back at her stomach. "Well, hi…kid. Uh… Mom?"

"What?" she laughed.

"What are we going to call this kid?"

"That's a very good question," she said.

"You don't know yet?" I squinted one eye in surprise.

"Well, everybody seems to have some ideas, but Dad and I haven't decided on anything yet. What do you think?"

"Me?" I stared.

She raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Well…uh…I don't know. Uh…" I pursed my lips, trying to look as serious and grown-up as I could, but I couldn't come up with a single idea. "Can I get back to you?"

"Sure," she nodded. "You've got three months."

"I'm sure I can come up with something by then," I promised.

"All right, good," she smiled, starting to get up.

As she did, my record book slid off the bed and landed by her feet. I bounded up to get it, then suddenly remembered the whole reason for starting it in the first place. I picked it up carefully and dusted it off.

"Um, Mom?" I called nervously.

She had almost reached the door but turned back to look at me. "Mmhm?"

"That—um—was why Dad wanted an omen, wasn't it?" I asked, feeling the heat of an embarrassed blush creep its way up my neck.

"What?" she frowned in confusion.

I swallowed. "When we found the hawk nest, remember? Dad asked Aunt Bee if it was a good omen. He wanted to know because he was scared that you…that you wouldn't live when the baby came."

"Oh…" understanding flashed over her face. "No, that wasn't the omen he was looking for, I don't think."

"What then?" I asked, my face growing warm.

"I—think that's something you'll have to ask your father, Owen."


	11. The Messenger

_A Ka'andesi can plot revenge for a very long time._

-Fox Kenobi

Somehow, I never did get to ask my father about the omen before Ben was born. It was only a few weeks after I spoke with Mom that he and Uncle Dannik flew for Coruscant. I tried to get up my nerve and ask before he left, but I still found the whole topic uncomfortable, even though I wasn't sure why. Then they were almost three weeks late getting back after having to dodge both the pirates and a Jedi task force that had been set to uncover their base. When they did make it home, there was fallout from Tellenda—who had it in his head that they had collaborated with the Jedi or at least that they had betrayed the location of the pirates' fleet.

Our family's big freighter, the _Honor's Flight_ had at least a dozen false ID profiles, so they tried to land her under cover of night and slip out of the spaceport before anyone knew that they had returned. Once on the plains, they could have hidden for as long as they had to. No Ka'andesi would give them up, and people would have made sure that no one could find the rest of us, either.

Mom, Aunt Bee, and I didn't know anything about it until Sadeya Deccol showed up in the middle of the night to warn us. I was awake in bed—I hadn't slept well since the _Honor's Flight_ left for Coruscant—and I heard the speeder pull into our courtyard. Instantly, I scrambled out of bed and pulled on my warm winter tunic, robes, and fur-lined boots. I was on the stairs before Mom even came out the front door.

In the darkness, I could make out the silhouette of a vague, androgynous form wearing clan robes and head coverings. It moved swiftly toward the house, more like a specter than a living being. I jumped for the nearest swing-rope and vaulted to the ground, certain that something was wrong and just as sure I could guess what it was.

"Owen, good. Here," a familiar voice cut through the night. I froze, too surprised to move or even reply. She tossed something at me, and it struck my chest, then slid into the snow at my feet.

"What…?"

"Hurry, now, we don't have much time. Wake your mother," Mrs. Deccol told me briskly.

I blushed, suddenly aware that I was wasting time. Glad of the darkness that hid my embarrassment, I shook myself out of the stupor that had gripped me and bent to pick up the piece of fabric that she had thrown in my direction. As soon as my fingers touched it, I recognized the stitching. An _adat_, the head covering a Ka'andesi man wore among enemies. I was only ten—two years shy of being old enough for one of these—there was only one reason that Mrs. Deccol would be bringing me one like this. I closed my fist around it and spun, running for the door.

_"Ua!_ I shouted for my mother, and my heart sank as the word ripped itself past my lips. A child called his parents _Uadi_ and _Okodi_, but my childhood ended in that moment. If I saw my father alive again, I could only address him as a man.

She met me in the doorway that led from the kitchen into the interior rooms of the compound. Her face was white and pinched. Her hands shook as she reached for my shoulders, but they steadied as she gripped me. For a heartbeat, I thought she would pull me against her swollen stomach and hold me, but she only stood that way for a second or two, then released me and turned her attention to Mrs. Deccol, who had followed me inside.

"What's happened, Deya?" she asked. There was almost no emotion in her voice at all now, and with a start, I realized that she was already dressed for travel. Had she somehow known? Why hadn't she told me? Why hadn't she and Aunt Bee been outside waiting when Mrs. Deccol arrived?

"Your men came into port tonight. Tellenda had _Honor's Flight_ boarded. Fox and Dannik tried to fight their way out, but there were too many. Fox was shot. Dannik wouldn't give the order even then," the other woman related in a voice that hard and brittle with suppressed rage.

"Of course not. That would have played right into Tellenda's hands," my mother nodded crisply, as if she was discussing a holochess game instead of her family's lives.

I looked at them in confusion, wanting to ask questions, knowing there would be no time. Aunt Bee appeared behind Mom and slid into the room carrying two heavy-looking satchels. Her lips were pressed into a thin white line, and she crossed the room, handing the bags to Mrs. Deccol.

"How badly was Fox hurt?" she asked.

"He took a blaster hit directly to the chest," the other woman reported. "We don't know whether he's alive or dead."

"Fox is alive," Mom asserted. "How long ago did they come in?"

I fought back tears, mystified at how calmly she and Aunt Bee were accepting all this. The clansman in me understood it. We preferred to be a peaceful people, but we were well acquainted with violence and death. I knew that, later, when we were out of danger—at least for the moment—they would weep for their men. Another part of me wanted to throw myself at Sadeya Deccol and pummel her for bringing such news. My father could not be dead!

I clenched both hands around the _adat_ I was holding, wrung the fabric like a chicken's neck. Why hadn't I gone with him? How could he leave like this? Didn't he know that I wasn't supposed to be a man yet? My mother was about to have a baby. How could I take care of them?

"About an hour ago," Mrs. Deccol answered Mom's question. "I would have come sooner, but I couldn't risk taking our speeder."

Mom and Aunt Bee both nodded, as if the answer confirmed something that they had already known. I felt a heavy weight settle on my chest. In silence, my mother laid her hand back on my shoulder.

"Come on," she said. "There's one more thing to be done."


	12. The Trust

_Growing up looks magical before the mask is on your head. But in the dark, your eyes open._

—_Seeing and Knowing: A Memoir of a World in Shadow,_ by Lared and Inalia Kenobi

I knew what she meant, but I couldn't believe that it was really happening. Swallowing hard, I followed her and my aunt through the dimly lit parlor and into the maze of interconnected rooms and corridors beyond. This place had been home to me since the day I was born, but suddenly it seemed alien—otherworldly. I was walking through it as a stranger in the middle of a cold, dank nightmare.

Deep within the compound, we came to a set of sealed blast doors emblazoned with a complex pattern of interlocked gold and tan rings on a red background. This was the record room—the place where the entire recorded history of our family and the broader history of our people was stored. I'd seen the blast doors down only once before. My mother had shown me how to seal them in an emergency.

"Put your hand on the sensor, Owen," she told me now, indicating the control panel just to the left of the doors. I was short and had to stretch to reach the sensor-plate, but I did so. The plate was cold, but my palm was sweating, and I felt my hand start to slide around almost as soon as touched the sensor mechanism. Mom quickly keyed a sequence of commands, and I felt my hand tingle.

The sensation lasted only a second or two. Then she nodded, and I slipped my hand back down. "Mom…"

"You must come back here, Owen. If Aunt Bee and I can't, then you and your brother must do it," she instructed.

"No! Mother!" I shook my head urgently.

"Owen," her voice was calm and commanding. "Go to the Central District and tell Renn Magre that you carry the Kenobi family trust. Bring her back here. Unlock this door for no one except Magre. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I nodded reluctantly.

"Good. Come now, quickly," she said, turning to move as fast as her body would allow back up the hall. I followed her as bravely as I could until I realized that Aunt Bee was still standing by the blast doors.

"Aunt Bee…" I started to say, but the words weren't even out of my mouth when another unwelcome truth asserted itself in my brain. If my mother had not been pregnant, her duty as Chronicler would have been to remain and protect the records—with her life if necessary. Aunt Bee was her partner, and since a Weaver's role was to safeguard the lives of her people, the task of protecting our history now fell to her.

They had been born less than a year apart. For as far back as I could remember, I had never seen them spend more than a day or two apart. Now they parted in silence. Neither of them discussed what had to be done. There was no argument and no goodbye. Drawing in a breath, I squared my shoulders and kept walking.

When we reached the kitchen again, Mrs. Deccol was waiting. My mother covered her head and face, and I stared down at the hood in my hands, feeling nothing but dread. My father would expect this of me, I knew, and there was no real choice. I couldn't let my face be seen in the city. Even knowing that, I couldn't shake the revulsion I felt for the _adat_. A voice in my mind whispered that once I donned it, I could never go back. This might be the last time I stood in this house—if I put on that hood, I would never walk the plains again, never see—

"Ben'ya!" I cried.

"Owen, there isn't time!" Mom told me.

"I need my book!" I insisted, already hurrying around her. I ran through the parlor and up the stairs, tearing through the dark hall to my room. Inside, the lights came on as soon as I entered. The record book stuck out from under my pillow. I ran in and grabbed it, then barreled back toward the door, only to skid to a halt in the doorway as I remembered something else.

Spinning around, I flew to my dresser and yanked the top drawer all the way out. It was heavy and slipped from my hands, landing with a loud crash. The ancient chestnut boards splintered and split, doing half my work for me. I fell to my knees and dug my fingers into the small slat that had been revealed in the bottom when the sides cracked. Heaving and grunting with effort, I pulled it back until the small hollow compartment was completely exposed.

Inside was a small blaster pistol, duplicate papers of ownership to the _Honor's Flight_, and a pouch that contained a bunch of forged identicards, enough spice, jewels, and money in the most common planetary currencies on the Outer Rim for my mother and I to completely disappear—as long as we could make it through the spaceport. Dad had shown me this stash when I was seven years old, and since then he had routinely drilled me the use of everything inside it. He'd also warned me never to tell my mother of its existence. It looked like she was going to find out now.

I tucked the blaster into my boot and tied the pouch to my belt. Then I pulled out my tunic to cover it and closed my robe, hoping that she would be too busy thinking about where we were going to complain about my clothes being a mess. I'd have to show it to her before long, but I didn't want to see the look on her face just now.

With all that accomplished, I dug through the clothes that were scattered on the floor and found the _adat_. I wanted to pull it over my head without stopping to think about what I was doing—about what the covering meant for me and what it implied for Dad and Uncle Dannik. I knew that's what my father would have done in my place, but I froze again, glaring at the thing.

_There is no time for this!_ I yelled at myself.

Forcefully, I yanked it over my head. Inside it, the world was a dark, strange place. There were no eye holes or openings for breathing. The material was a fine mesh which, from the outside, appeared to be heavy, solid black cloth. On the inside, it felt light and surprisingly comfortable. I didn't feel any hotter than I had a moment ago, and I had no trouble breathing. I could also see, but with a kind of pallor over the world, as if I was viewing it through a darkened lens.

_Maybe this is what it feels like to go blind…_ I thought suddenly. Then I shook my head. It didn't matter. What mattered was getting out of here.

I picked up my record book again, climbed to my feet and ran as fast as my legs could carry me back to the kitchen. It was empty, and the door was open. I kept running.

Outside, Mrs. Deccol was helping my mother into the back of the speeder. I was a little surprised to see that our bags were in the front seat, but before I could wonder about it very much, Mom doubled over in pain.

"_Ua!_" I shouted, racing to help.

"It's all right, Owen," she said through clenched teeth.

"Help me get her in," Mrs. Deccol told me.

"What's the matter?" I asked fearfully.

"Your brother is coming," Mom said, clutching the side of the vehicle. "And he has…your father's…sense of timing."


	13. The Race

_Trust the river, but do not forget to keep your head above water_

—_The Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples,_ as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'llier

I felt as if I had been caught in a river during flood season. I was aware of the wind and the sound of the speeder; my mother's heavy breathing and her stifled cries as each contraction came, but I could do nothing to help her. I could barely keep my own head above water. I had no idea where this raging current of events was pulling us, although I did at some point realize that we were not headed for Nor Galis.

I was intimately familiar with the landscape of the plains, but the only times I travelled through them in a speeder was when the family went to the spaceport or when I was conscripted to help Aunt Bee with her Weaver's duties. Everything passed by me in a blur. The moons cast an eerie light on familiar landmarks, and I barely had time to register them before they were gone. The world was more indigo than black in the double moonlight, and everything had a strange quality to it that one never really became accustomed to. To make things worse, I was still adjusting to the mask I wore. I lost my sense of direction entirely, and I could only wait for us to stop, hoping that once we did, I would be able to get my bearings again.

I clenched and unclenched my fists as we drove, trying to look in every direction at once. As far as I could tell, there was nothing following us, but my throat was tight with fear, and I couldn't shake the sense of impending doom. I kept expecting the speeder to swerve and go out of control, or pirates to start strafing us from the air. I wanted to claw the thoughts out of my brain, and with each passing minute I felt more and more useless.

"_Ua,_ can I do anything to help you?" I asked.

The back seats of the speeder reclined, and she was half-prone with her eyes closed. Both of her hands were positioned over her stomach in a kind of meditation pose I'd seen her and Aunt Bee use in their work. She was concentrating on a routine of breathing exercises, but after a slight pause, she looked at me and smiled.

"We're fine for the moment, son. Just try to relax. I'm going to need plenty of help from you when we get there," she said.

_Get where?_ I wanted to yell. _I have no idea what's happening, and if I_ could _relax, I wouldn't be asking for something to do, now would I?_

I clamped my jaw on the outburst, knowing that it would serve no real purpose. It would probably upset her, too, and I didn't want to add to her distress at a time like this. Sighing, I redoubled my efforts to determine whether the pirates were following us. That, at least, would serve a purpose if they did show up. Even a few seconds' warning could be the difference between life and death for my whole family.

By the time we stopped, no one had caught up with us, but it turned out that stopping didn't help my confusion very much. We had crossed from the plains onto the savannah by then. We weren't anywhere near Ierei's den, and that was the only place I knew out here. The speeder crested a small hill and then glided down the other side, coming to a halt in front of what looked like two massive slabs of rock. I climbed over the side and helped my mother out while Mrs. Deccol took our bags out.

"I should stay with you, Sajani," she said in a troubled tone.

"No," Mom shook her head. "No one can know you're gone, and I'm going to need a Healer now that Bee isn't…with us."

"And what if something happens in the meanwhile?" she argued.

"The contractions are still almost twenty minutes apart. This baby isn't coming for a while yet, but the longer we stand here and debate about what to do, the more likely he is to show up before qualified help does," Mom replied in an unnervingly calm tone.

"All right," Mrs. Deccol agreed grudgingly. "How are you going to carry all this?"

"I can!" I said quickly, glad to at least have something to do.

Even though I couldn't see her face, her stance and body language easily told me that she had her doubts. I bristled. I may not have been farm-bred, but I was a far sight more acquainted with heavy lifting than a soft city-dweller. Without speaking, I took the satchels from her and settled one on each shoulder.

"I'm strong enough," I told her, though the effort of holding both of them made my teeth clench. "But, um, where exactly are we going?"

Mom's hand drifted down to cup the back of my head. "This way," she directed, leading me toward the rocks.

When we were almost on top of them, I saw a shadow—a deepening of darkness that had to indicate cave or tunnel of some kind—but it was barely wide enough for an adult to walk through sideways. She was going to have to hunch over to make it inside, and there was no way she could do it without having to force her stomach past the stone.

"_Ua,_ you're going to hurt yourself," I said, grabbing her arm.

"It'll hurt a lot less than getting caught if Tellenda's men track us from the house," she said.

"But what about the baby?" I asked worriedly.

"He's already on his way out. This will just help him feel motivated," she told me.

"I thought we didn't _want_ him to come faster!" I objected.

"There's no choice, Owen," she said. "You're going to have to help me."

"Okay…" I said doubtfully.

"I'll send them as fast as I can," Mrs. Deccol promised, giving my mother a light hug before she climbed back into the speeder.


	14. The Entrance

_The way a Ka'andesi enters the world is the way he will live his life._

—The Collected Wisdom of the Ka'andesi Peoples, as told to Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear

Once we were alone, Mom approached the cave and placed her palms flat against the stone on either side of the entrance. Warily, I came closer, slipping one hand on top of hers. I had seen her and Aunt Bee use the Force before, and it always seemed to work the best when they were touching each other. Aunt Bee wasn't here, and I was the closest kin she had, so I figured I would have to do. The hand underneath mine turned and clasped my fingers, then I watched as her whole body seemed to go loose and fluid. Her eyes closed, and her head slipped forward so that her chin touched her chest. I wondered if I was supposed to feel something. They always talked about feeling the Force, but all I felt was the frigid night air.

After a few minutes, a light spray of pebbles bounced down off of the rocks and peppered my head. Flinching, I raised my free arm to shield myself, but my mother seemed not to notice at all. She stayed perfectly still and the shower of stones continued to worsen.

_Great,_ I thought. _If the pirates don't catch us, it'll be a cave-in._.

"Shhh, Owen," Mom urged softly.

My mouth popped open.

The rocks let up after that, as if my wayward thoughts had broken her concentration. Contrite, I set my jaw and purposed to think of absolutely nothing until she was finished with…whatever she was doing. The more I tried to think of nothing, though, the more I became aware of how cold it was, and how vulnerable we would be out here if Tellenda's lackeys found us. Dad wouldn't like this, I realized. He wouldn't like anything about it. I knew I should do something about it—get us all to some real kind of safety—but what?

"Don't focus on your fears," Mom murmured. "Concentrate on the rocks."

_What…?_ I cocked an eyebrow and squinted at the stone wall with my other eye. After about thirty seconds of doing so, I developed a headache, and I still had no idea what my mother was doing.

The spray of pebbles began again, worsening this time. Then I felt the ground beneath my feet start to shake. There was a horrible racket, and even in the dark, I could see the mouth of the cave tremble. My jaw dropped again, and I stared in astonishment as the two sides grated their way further apart.

"That's impossible!" I breathed.

Then, as if in response, my mother half turned and collapsed with her back against the stone. I hurried to steady her, but she slid down to the ground, exhausted. Biting my lip worriedly, I knelt down beside her and peered into her haggard face.

"Are you okay?" I asked, mopping her forehead and cheeks with the back of my sleeve.

She nodded but didn't speak for several minutes. I waited, watching her carefully, though I couldn't have said exactly what I was watching for. I knew next to nothing about using the Force, and even less about having babies. I wished fervently that my aunt was here, or at least that _someone_ else was. Aunt Bee, with her knowledge of both healing and the Force would have been the best choice, but I would have even welcomed Ierei.

"How far…did it move?" Mom asked finally.

I looked up, studying the opening behind us, and sighed. "Not much. Maybe an inch or two. Do you think you can make it wider? You're still going to have a really hard time."

She sighed and shook her head. "It took everything I had to move it that much. It'll have to be enough."

"I thought the Force and the land were the same thing," I frowned. "If you can move it a little, why not more?"

"They are the same. And different. I'm not very strong, either, Owen," she told me softly.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Once, very long ago, the Chroniclers and Weavers were strong in the Force, like the Jedi Knights. The difference is that our gifts in the Force are always tied to the land and the clan that we're a part of. There hasn't been a powerful Ka'andesi like that since we made our home here, and me…well…away from the plains, my abilities lessen. I'm surprised I could widen that opening at all," she explained.

"Then why…" I let the question trail off, suddenly afraid of the answer.

"Your brother will be very strong in the Force," she replied, moving her hand onto my shoulder to lever herself into a standing position. I slid my arms around her to help. "Stronger than any Ka'andesi has been in many generations."

I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't like what it could mean for this brother of mine. Our father didn't trust the Jedi Knights. He said their power made them dangerous, and I believed him. He also said they came and took children away from their homes, never letting them see their families again.

_That was not going to happen to my brother._

But if he was stronger than any Ka'andesi, who could show him the Force except the Jedi?

"Owen," Mom said, and I tilted my face up at her. "Don't borrow trouble. We have enough to contend with already tonight."

"Right," I agreed dismally.

"Listen. Aunt Bee put a datapad in one of those packs. There are instructions and diagrams on it in case the others don't get here in time," she told me.

"What?" I stared at her through my mask, praying that I had heard her wrong.

"If I lose consciousness or if no one else is here when the baby comes, you are going to have to help. You'll have to deliver him," she replied evenly.

How could she be _saying_ that in the same voice she used to tell me I had to help Dad and Uncle Dannik load farm equipment? We were talking about her _life_! Maybe my brother's life, too—or even both of them!

"Mother, I don't know anything about babies!" I cried in the clan tongue. "How can I help you give birth!"

"You can do anything you have to do, Owen," she told me firmly. "You are a man of the plains, like your father and my father before you."

"But…!"

"I trust you," she told me in Ka'andesi. "Now, are you ready to help me?"

Slowly, painfully, I drew in a breath and forced back my frightened tears. "Yes."

"Good," she nodded in approval, then turned to face the cave again.

She studied it briefly, then bent and slipped one shoulder through the opening. Then she reached back with her other hand, and I positioned myself to support her, bringing my shoulder under her arm. We pushed and inched forward for what seemed like hours. My neck, shoulder, arm, and then my whole body ached with the effort. Both of us were drenched in sweat, and I could feel her trembling. She tried hard not to cry out, but even still her breath came in sharp, labored gasps and the effort she made to keep silent told me more about how much pain she was in than if she had screamed.

Finally, just as I thought we were about to make it inside, she clamped down on my shoulder so tight that I could feel tendon and bone grinding together. Her back arched against the stones, forcing her stomach more tightly against the other side, and finally she did scream. The sound of it made every hair on my body stand on end. Something wet gushed out from between her legs—blood? I couldn't see well enough to know.

"Ua!" I sobbed, terrified.

"Owen! Help me!" she gasped out in desperation.

"I am!" I told her, still shoving with all my young strength. The contraction made her whole body rigid, but the longer she stayed where she was, the more pressure there would be on her womb. I had to get her inside, no matter what it took, no matter how badly it cut her.

Taking a step backward, I slipped the two satchels off and let them drop to the ground. My heart hammered in my chest, and I could barely breathe. Every second I wasted was potentially one less that she and my brother had to live, but I knew I was only going to get one shot at this. Taking a deep breath, I repositioned my shoulder and then ploughed forward with every shred of strength and determination I possessed. My mother shrieked in pain and tumbled through the narrow passageway on her side.

"Mother?" I called, racing in after her. "Mother!"


	15. The Den

_Never be caught with your back to the wall. And if you are, make sure you have the biggest gun._

—Fox Kenobi

What little light there was outside seemed to be sucked away as soon as I stepped inside the cave. My mother had stopped screaming—the contraction must have ended—but I could still hear her trying to catch her breath. I ran toward the sound and dropped to my knees, groping for her in the pitch black gloom.

"I'm…all right," she said weakly, and I felt her fingers brush my hand. She gripped my fingers for a second, then told me, "Don't forget…the packs outside."

I swallowed and nodded. The rich coppery smell of blood hung heavily around her. She was badly cut, or maybe bleeding from inside. The Force only knew about my brother now. There would be a medkit and other supplies in the packs—but I was the only one who would be able to help. The most I'd ever done before was patch up a wounded fox or splint a bird's wing. We didn't keep livestock, and though I'd gone with my aunt to assist at birthings for years, the farmers were protective of their animals and they didn't like me to do more than hand her things or run for buckets of water. What was I going to do?

"I'll be right back," I forced myself to whisper. My lips shook with fear, and it was hard to form the words. "Try not to move."

"I won't," she promised as I turned and bolted out again.

Before picking up the satchels, I opened them and found the two glowrods that Aunt Bee had left at the top. I lit one, and it flared a bright lavender, making the landscape look even more strange and hostile to me. I tried to ignore the growing unease in the pit of my stomach. There was nothing to be gained from thinking about it now.

Once I had all the gear settled on my back, I returned to my mother, who was meditating again. She opened her eyes as I knelt beside her, and I slipped the light into her hand. She tried to give me a reassuring smile, but I wasn't convinced.

After several seconds spent trying to assess her injuries, I sighed in frustration and yanked the _adat_ off my head, grumbling. "The light's weird and I can't see right."

"I know," she nodded. "It takes a while to get used to it."

"Your stomach is pretty cut up, but it looks like only one is deep," I told her when I had examined the injuries. "Um, I don't know how to tell about anything inside. I think we shouldn't move you anymore until the baby comes. Aunt Bee says never to move a patient if you're not sure."

She started to say something, but another contraction came and she couldn't speak until it passed. I watched helplessly, becoming more afraid for her with each second. Birth was not supposed to be easy, but the pains seemed much worse than they had in the speeder. What was I going to do if she passed out? What if something was wrong with my brother? How would I even know? All I had to go on were some instructions Aunt Bee left on a datapad.

Letting the packs drop to the floor, I rooted around inside them, searching for it frantically. When I didn't find it right away, my temper flared, and I had to fight down the urge to start throwing supplies and extra clothing out or just dump the whole thing on the cave floor. Why couldn't she have been more careful where she put the thing? She knew how important it was! It was bad enough she had to leave Mom and I like this. Couldn't she have at least made sure I could _find_ the only help she'd given us?

"Here!" I cried at last, pulling it out. "Aunt Bee's datapad. We'll be all right, Mother."

_As long as the baby waits long enough for me to read it…_ I added silently.

"Owen…" Mom breathed as the contraction finally subsided.

I put my hand on her cheek. "You want some water?"

Her eyes slid closed, and she nodded, but she told me, "Listen."

"Just a second," I muttered. The packs were a mess. I'd seen travel flasks in here while I was looking for the datapad, but I must have dislodged them. Finding them made a bigger mess, and I kept hearing Aunt Bee's voice in my head talking about how having organized supplies could save time in a crisis.

_Well, it's your fault anyway!_ I yelled in my mind. _Why can't you tell me something useful?_

"You're…you're right," Mom continued with a note of urgency. "I don't think it's wise to go any further in before help comes, but we're not safe here."

I looked up angrily. "If it's not safe, why did we go through all of that to get _in_?"

"This passageway gets wider. It goes deeper into the earth. Follow it down. There's a cavern with weapons," she told me.

"Weapons?" I frowned. "What kind of weapons? What is this place?"

"It's your father's old den," she said cryptically.

"What?"

"I'll explain it later," she promised with a hint of mischievous pleasure in her tone.

"How can you possibly be enjoying this?" I grumbled.

"You have to keep a sense of humor in bad times, Owen. It's the mark of a true clansman," she said.

"Great. I'll keep working on it then," I rolled my eyes.

Once I found the water, I cracked the seal and moved to support her head and shoulder while she drank. Then, I propped one of bags under her head and pulled an emergency blanket out of the second one. After that, I used my knife to cut away the bottom of her shirt. It had been torn up when she got stuck, and there were small fibers in the wounds on her stomach. I knew that if I didn't get them cleaned out, they would cause infection.

I tried hard not to think about who she was as I worked to stop the bleeding and disinfect the gashes. No matter how much I told myself that it was the same as cleaning an animal's wound or patching up my dad's hand if he hurt himself in the shop, there was a heavy weight on my chest. In my heart I knew that two lives—the two most important people left in my world—now depended on me.

I could feel another contraction starting just as I had finished applying antiseptic gel. Instinctively, I jerked my hand away from her stomach. Then I bit my lip and grabbed her hand, hoping at least that it would bring her some comfort.

"OW!" I shouted, eyes bulging as she crushed my fingers together. "Mom—Mom…! I'm gonna need my hand, okay? Try not to break it!"

* * *

A note to the readers of my SW fics: I haven't forgotten about you! My migraines are still not cooperating, and time crunches are limiting my fic-writing time. There will be more in the upcoming weeks/months, I promise. Next on the schedule is an update to _Force Heritage._


	16. The Path

_The Force can only guide you as far as your brains will let it._

—Fox Kenobi

**The Path**

Slowly, her grip loosened and her hand fell away. I heaved a great sigh of relief, flexing my fingers. This wave of pain seemed worse for her than the last one had been. It lasted longer, and she struggled breath through it the way that Mrs. Deccol had been telling her in the speeder. I was afraid that it might cause her to start bleeding again, and a hard lump rose in my throat. Blood loss would make her weak; even if the cuts weren't deep, it would take a toll. Desperately, I tried to guess how long it would be before anyone in Nor Galis even knew we were out here.

That only fed my frustration. I had no idea how far from the city we were or how long it would take the other clanswoman to fetch help. For all I knew she had been caught by the pirates on her way back.

"Mother, I'm going to look for a laser cauterizer," I said when the contraction finally ebbed. "I don't want you to start bleeding all over again."

She nodded tiredly. "Sorry about your hand."

"It's okay," I said as I dug out the medkit. Cauterizers weren't standard, but Aunt Bee had her own ideas about what medical equipment should be considered a necessity. If she'd packed our supplies, then…

_Yes! Okay, I forgive you!_ I thought as I pulled the small, metal device from the kit and flicked it on to test.

A thin, blue-violet looking line of energy arched between the two prongs on the front end. In normal light, it would have been a more familiar red, and it took me a second to register that there wasn't something wrong with it. I flicked it off again and took a deep breath, trying to get my brain to function.

My mouth went dry as I ran the cauterizer over her stomach. I'd used them plenty of times, and I knew that they were too low-powered to harm her or the baby, but I couldn't shake the fear that I was going to make some horrible mistake. My stomach churned, and I began to feel an acidic burning creep up into my throat.

_You are not allowed to throw up, Owen,_ I lectured myself.

"You're doing fine," Mom said softly.

"Would you stop doing that!" I snapped.

"Doing what?" she asked.

"Whatever you're doing! Reading my mind."

"I can sense your feelings, that's all," she told me reassuringly. "I've always done that."

"Well, I never noticed you doing it this much, and it's annoying!" I complained.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

"Forget it," I sighed as I finished and set the cauterizer back in the medkit. Closing it, I shifted positions so that the boot where I'd hidden the blaster was planted on the cave floor, I pulled the weapon out and pressed it into her free hand. It wasn't much, but it was all I had at the moment, and if the pirates had tracked us, they would find her before they found me.

I expected her to question me, but she only smiled, seeming completely unsurprised. Deciding not to press my luck by waiting around for an interrogation, I settled her head back on the floor, grabbed the second glowrod and sprang to my feet.

"Be careful," she warned.

"I will," I promised. "I'll be as quick as I can. Try not to start having the baby while I'm gone."

"I'll do my best. Listen for the water," she told me.

"Water?" I asked.

"Dripping water. That's the way you have to go," she explained.

_Great directions,_ I thought, stifling a sigh.

I kept to one side of the passage, moving with my hand pressed against the rough stone wall. I didn't know how far it went, and even with the glowrod, I wasn't sure of my surroundings. The last thing I needed was to get turned around. After a few meters, I did start to feel as if I was moving on a downward slope. I looked over my shoulder toward my mother, but eventually she disappeared.

Then all I had to guide me was the sensation of the wall against my skin. I tried to imagine my father here. The darkness wouldn't have bothered him at all. He wouldn't have needed a glowrod to find his way. The first few times he'd been in here, maybe he would have done what I was doing, but after that, he would have the whole cavern system stamped on his brain. He'd know where he was just by the way his clicks and the sounds of his footsteps changed as he went further in. That…and maybe…

"Yeah," I nodded to myself in satisfaction as I caught the faint sound of dripping water in the distance. I paused, listening hard to it as I tried to tell where it was coming from. My ears weren't anywhere near as sharp as Dad's, but sometimes, just to see if I could, he made me close my eyes and listen to things around us, trying to pick out little details that would give me clues to where or what something else was. He'd always called it a game, but I realized suddenly that it wasn't—it never had been.

The drops were slow, and they made a kind of plunking echo that told me there was standing water down there. I frowned and edged closer, but before long the tunnel I was in widened, and I saw three separate branches, each one leading in a different direction.

"Oh, of course," I shook my head and hunkered down closer to the ground. The echo would be stronger in whichever direction that the water really lay. The question was if my ears were good enough to pick up the difference.

I closed my eyes, focusing all of my attention on the sound…no. That wasn't going to work. That wasn't what Dad did. He used everything. Water had a smell, too. Groundwater like this was different from the surface, and the smell seeped into the stone.

Another minute passed. I wasn't sure. Straightening, I raked my fingers through my hair.

"Come on, Owen, it can't be this hard. She wouldn't have sent you down here if it was this hard to find. Where's it coming from?"

_Left_ something whispered within me. The Force? A latent smuggler's instinct? I couldn't say, but I knew enough not to question it.

The left tunnel was the narrowest of the three. It was so tight, in fact, that I could touch both sides with my fingertips as I walked. It seemed to go on forever, and it got progressively lower, until the ceiling was almost touching my head. If this was where my father had kept a weapons stash, he would have had to crawl in on his hands and knees.

I began to wonder if I had made the wrong choice after all. Then, without warning, the slope of the floor increased dramatically, and I lost my footing. I landed on my stomach and slid the rest of the way down, barely managing to hold on to the glowrod.

At the bottom was another cavern, and I could hear the water dripping from the ceiling into a pool of some kind at the far end. Grinning to myself, I climbed to my feet and held up the light. Then my mouth fell open.

"Stang!"

* * *

Ben's coming soon, folks, I promise. I'm trying to keep these chapters short for a fic challenge.


	17. The Arrival

**The Arrival**

"Stang…ang…ang…!" my exclamation echoed.

The whole cavern was filled with a kind of blue-green watery glow. The purplish cast from my glowrod added to it, making it seem as if I was standing in the middle of an ocean. The walls gleamed with colored quartz and other mineral deposits, and great stalactites hung from the ceiling. At the far side was an irregular pool of water so large that was it was almost a lake, with a ring of stalagmites rising up around it like sentries.

Over centuries, the water had cut rough steps into the stone walls, and someone had carefully added to them, building a bridge and a network of scaffolding that stretched outward and up toward the center of the ceiling. It couldn't have all been natural, but the lines were so closely linked to the existing flow of the stone and mineral deposits, that I couldn't tell where nature ended and Ka'andesi work began. Whatever had been used to build this place had to have cost a fortune. It wasn't durasteel, plasteel, or even the common kind of imitation stone I saw in the city. It looked too much like the real cave walls.

I approached the steps with both curiosity and apprehension. Dad and Uncle Dannik may have used this place once, but I knew they couldn't have created something like this on their own. It would've taken my entire life, or more, and I couldn't imagine where the money or laborers had come from.

When I reached the top of the steps, I saw endless stacks of crates, all sealed and marked with a weapon type, manufacturer, model number, and quantity. Most were written in _Ch'lliear_ or _Ch'anrad_, which was spoken by the forest clan; others were written in _Os'aru_, the language of the mountain dwellers; and a few here were in a language I didn't recognize. It had to be _Ilel'quaeld_, spoken by the far off desert clan. I could only really read _Ch'lliear_ and _Ch'anrad_, but I knew what the crates all held because underneath each label, there were three rows of raised dots. It was a lettering system that my father and Uncle Dannik had developed years ago, back on Coruscant when they first learned that Dad was going blind. Every tool, every hatch on _Honor's Flight_, every piece of equipment, and every container or cargo bin had those same dots on them. I'd learned to read them alongside the clan languages when I was little. Which meant that even if my family didn't own this place anymore—if it was possible to own a cave the way people owned houses—it had something to do with us.

So why, if we had all this at our disposal, did my father and Uncle Dannik just go off on a smuggling run saying that we needed money? And why didn't somebody use all this stuff to get rid of the pirates? Unless that's what it was for…

Suddenly, I remembered part of the conversation that my mother and Mrs. Deccol had before we left the house.

_"Your men came into port tonight. Tellenda had Honor's Flight boarded. Fox and Dannik tried to fight their way out, but there were too many. Fox was shot. Dannik wouldn't give the order even then."_

"Of course not. That would have played right into Tellenda's hands."

Were Dad and Uncle Dannik massing some kind of rebellion against the pirates? If so, why were they taking so long? And why would they let themselves get captured instead of giving an order for the rest of the clan to fight?

I scrubbed my face with my hands. There wasn't time to worry about it now. The only thing that mattered was protecting my mother and my soon-to-be-born brother. As quickly as I could, I went through the stacks looking for blaster carbines and extra power cells. Then I grabbed as many thermal dets as I could stuff into my robes and ran back through the tunnels the way I had come.

When I was halfway there, I heard my mother scream again. My lungs were already burning with the effort of climbing uphill at a run, but I forced my legs to go faster. Was a contraction? Pirates? Horrible visions flashed through my mind. Was I going to find her throat cut? Would she be dead in a pool of her own blood because I took too long?

I tried to yell, but I couldn't get my lungs to give me enough air for more than a few weak, puffy syllables. Telling myself that the effort would be better spent on running, I lowered my head and ploughed forward like a trihorn bull charging a rival on the plains. The scream abated as I finally burst back into the passage where I'd left her, and I staggered forward, collapsing onto my knees with relief when I realized that it must have been a birthing pain.

"You…okay…?" I panted.

"No…" she replied through clenched teeth, and I felt my whole body grow cold.

"What's wrong?" I asked, fighting back a whimper as my vision starting to swim with unshed tears. I'd failed her. Failed them both. I'd let my father and Aunt Bee and Uncle Dannik down…

"The baby's coming to soon," she said raggedly. "I'm not ready for him to come out yet. There's not enough room for his head yet. "

"What do I do!" I screamed, scrambling toward her as fast as I could force my body to move.

"Nothing," she shook her head. "There's nothing you can do, Owen!"

"There has to be, Mom!" I insisted, shaking my own head in vehement refusal to accept what she was saying. "I'm not just going to let him die!"

"I'm going to have to use the Force to try and get myself fully dilated," she said, then screamed as another contraction ripped through her body.

I dumped the weapons cache on the floor and dove for the datapad. There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate well enough to use the Force now. Aunt Bee's instructions were the only chance.

"There's gotta be some way I can help you," I muttered, more to myself than to her. "There has to be."

* * *

Ben's coming soon, folks, I promise. I'm trying to keep these chapters short for a fic challenge.


	18. The Hunter

**The Hunter**

"Go and get some water from inside," Mom told me.

"I can't," I shook my head firmly. She needed me here. This whole "send the kid for hot water" routine was all well and good when we were talking about farm animals, but this was my mother. We'd just have to do without it, because no matter what she said to me, I wasn't going to leave.

"Owen, do what I'm telling you, and don't—" another scream cut off the sentence.

I clenched my fists, preparing to argue, but while she was still in the throes of her labor pain, I thought I saw motion in the corner of my eye. I whirled toward the cave entrance, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Three pairs of glowing eyes, one silver and two a sort of baleful red-gold, were prowling at the mouth of the cave.

Instinctively, I dove for a blaster rifle. Once I had it, I rolled onto my side and fired blindly toward the entrance. I didn't know what they were, and I didn't like shooting animals without cause, but I wasn't taking chances. There were as many kinds of predator in the savannah as there were on the plains, and I didn't know the wildlife here. Hungry packs of various species could scent blood a mile away and come in search of an easy meal.

The beasts scattered, snarling and growling in angry distress. I kept shooting. If I didn't _hit_ them, they would just go further back, out of blaster range, where they could just wait us out.

"Owen—!" my mother started to say, but she got no farther before she screamed again.

I glanced back at her fearfully. It was getting worse. Whatever she was going to try to do with the Force, she couldn't do it with a pack of hungry carnivores outside—

There was another snarl and a blur of motion. I fired off one last shot, but realized in a moment of terrible clarity that the hunter was going to be on top of me in another second. A furry body collided with mine, pinning me to the ground. I saw a flash of dangerous, curving teeth, felt hot, panting puffs of breath in my face, and struggled to bring my blaster to bear.

The teeth clamped down on my weapon, wresting it from my grip. I blinked. The blaster clattered across the cavern floor and crashed into the wall, then the animal let out a terrifying growl.

"Owen! It's _ME!_!" it shouted in a gravelly voice. It took a second for my overtaxed brain to process the words, then I let my head and shoulders fall back onto the floor in relief.

"Uncle Krir," I half-sobbed. "How did you find us?"

"I know when anyone trespasses in the savannah," Ierei's father replied.

Then he bent his head and gave my face a little, reassuring lick. Then he stepped back and padded on all fours over to my mother. The two other Faorrins—one a full grown adult and the other a pup—were already with her. Both of them had maroon-colored Healer's packs on their backs.

"She said she's not ready," I told them, scrambling to my feet. "There's…not enough room for the baby's head to come out."

"She's right," said the Healer in a crisp female voice that reminded me of my Aunt Bee. "We don't have full dilation, and this child is very low. I'm going to have to deliver surgically. Is there water?"

"In the cache cavern," Krir replied. "Ierei, go. Owen, show her where."

I scrubbed my face with my hands.

The younger Faorrin wriggled out of her pack and bounded toward me. I blinked a few more times as I registered that it was Ierei, but she passed me by without comment and started for the tunnels. When I didn't follow immediately, she paused, looking back at me over her shoulder.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I—"

"Owen, move it," Krir ordered softly but with a clear undertone of command.

Even though I was supposed to be "showing" Ierei, she ran ahead of me the whole way. She was so much faster that when she reached the branch-off point, she had to double back for me. I almost fell over from trying to move so fast while going downhill.

"Didn't know you could…run so fast…" I panted.

"I don't usually have to," she replied. "Which way?"

"Left," I said, and she darted off without waiting for me to catch my breath.

I started after her, but my legs just wouldn't run anymore. I knew that the water would be important for surgery, but now that I wasn't the only thing standing between my mother and death during childbirth, the fear and adrenaline that had kept me going this long was beginning to taper off. There was a stitch in my side, and I kept stumbling in the cramped confines of the tunnel. In the beginning, I saw her ahead of me, but then she disappeared, and the only way I knew she was still there was the sound of her claws scrabbling against the cave floor.

I had never seen her like this before. It was as if some switch had been thrown and the gabby little cub I had played with for my whole life disappeared, swallowed up by the Healer she was training to be. I wouldn't have believed it if I couldn't see it for myself, but I was immensely relieved that she was here. As I followed her into the cache cavern, I felt certain that things were going to be all right now. Even if I didn't know what to do, Ierei would—

Suddenly, I remembered the drop off at the end of the tunnel and tried to force out more speed. "Ierei, wait!"

It didn't do any good. The next sound I heard was a frightened _yipe!_ It was followed by the unmistakable noise of canine feet trying desperately to halt a downward slide.

"OOOOOOOWWWWEEEEEENNNNNNN…!"

* * *

Ben's coming soon, folks, I promise. I'm trying to keep these chapters short for a fic challenge.


	19. The Healer

**The Healer**

I found Ierei splay-legged on the floor in the cache cavern. She looked up as I entered, and I stifled an involuntary snicker. To cover the laughter, I hurried to help her up.

"Um, are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes," her answer was quick and to the point, almost curt. As soon as the word was out of her mouth, she started scanning the room. After a few seconds, she dashed up the steps and upended a midsized crate with a solid bottom and shielded sides that had been painted in what I thought was an odd shade of turquoise, but I couldn't be sure since the glowrod's color distorted everything.

I ran up as quick as I could to help her, and we carried it over to the water's edge. The size and shape made it awkward, and once we had submerged it long enough to get it half full, we had to wrestle it out of the pool. By the time we were done, we were both drenched, but I was sweating too heavily to feel the chill that would inevitably result.

We found a cover for it, but carrying it back was a long and laborious process. I wondered if Krir and the Healer would even wait for it. I was beginning to suspect that sending kids to fetch water at a time like this was little more than a distraction technique—something that _seemed_ useful, but was really more about getting us out from underfoot than it was about the need for clean water.

There wasn't room for us to walk side by side in the tunnels. I had to go backwards holding onto one end of the crate while Ierei steadied the other end and walked forward. I still had my glowrod clipped to my belt, but it didn't do me much good since I couldn't see where I was going. Ierei had better night vision than I did, so it made sense that she would be the one to guide us back, but I hated the feeling of not being in control of my own footsteps.

Though I tried to stay focused on the task at hand, I found myself wondering if my father had ever felt the way I did now. He was around my age when his eyesight really started to go. Had he already learned to compensate by then, or was there a time when he had been dependent on Uncle Dannik the way that I was now forced to rely on Ierei?

I realized I might never know. My brother—if he survived—would probably know less than I did about both of them. Mom had said that they were still alive, but I didn't think the pirates would keep them that way for long. They would make an example of our family so that no one else in the district would dare defy them. I would have to teach the baby the things that they had taught me—but how could I? What if…?

"That's it," I murmured, more to myself than to Ierei.

"What?" she asked.

"I just figured out the omen," I told her.

"Well, tell me later, okay?" she said distantly.

"You're starting to make me nervous, Ierei," I complained.

"What?"

"You're acting all weird!" I exclaimed.

"Owen, we have to keep our minds on what we're doing right now. It doesn't matter if I want to know what you figured out or not. People's lives are more important than that," explained Ierei.

"I know. It's my mother and brother we're talking about!" I snapped before I realized what I was saying.

"I know that," Ierei's tone was strangely calm. "Asorei will take care of them. She's the best Healer in the den.

"It's just, I don't know what's gonna happen. And I've never seen you act like this before, that's all," I sighed.

"It's what my training is for," she said, confused.

"I know that. It's still weird," I said.

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault," I shrugged.

Ierei didn't say anything else until we reached the entrance. Once there, we set down the water and Asorei began barking orders at us. Normally, it would have bothered me to have a stranger taking care of my family this way, but Krir and Ierei trusted her, so I hardly gave it a thought. The truth was, I felt so relieved to have someone else in charge that I probably would have done whatever she told me to even if Ierei _hadn't_ said she was the best healer in the den.

In our absence, they had prepped my mother for emergency surgery. She seemed to be sleeping, though I couldn't tell if she had lost consciousness or if Asorei had given her some kind of drug. I hoped it was the latter, but I didn't dare interrupt to ask questions now.

All three of us scrubbed as best we could in the cold water, but the Healer told me that my job was to wait and be ready to keep the baby warm while the rest of them saw to my mother. I wasn't sure whether that made me feel relieved or more worried. I knew that I wouldn't be of much other use, but when I saw the ugly long knife from the healers pack begin cutting its way into her abdomen, all I could hear was the words my father had spoken in the shop before he left for Coruscant.

_ "I want you in the medcenter…I don't want you giving birth out here again with no one but Bee to help you…_

Aunt Bee was as good as any city healer I'd ever met. If Dad didn't think _she_ could handle it alone, how would he have felt about a den healer—even one that Uncle Krir trusted? I _knew_ he wouldn't want this happening out here. In a medcenter they would have had sterile surgical impliments—laser scalpels and monitors for vital signs, not metal knives and ancient mysticism. I believed in the Force, and although I wasn't sure what all of the Faorrin's training involved, I knew that the Force was part of it, but I was like my father. I trusted what I could put my hands on, what I could control.

Now, I could only watch in horror as Asorei's knife drew a long, horizontal line along my mother's womb. I winced as blood began to ooze from the incision—more than I could have imagined. Then she had Ierei brace her hands against the two sides and pull the skin back while she reached inside. My stomach started doing flip flops, and Krir growled at me not to pass out or throw up until they were finished.

Asorei began to pull my brother from the womb, and I grit my teeth against the urge to vomit. It looked more like a piece of industrial adhesive goo being squeezed the wrong way out of an opening that was too small than the miraculous entrance into the world that my family had described. The healer had him by the head, which I imagined must have been both uncomfortable and scary for someone who, until that moment, had only known the safety of a tiny confined space inside our mother. Krir reached help pull his body out while Asorei supported the head.

Both of them struggled to keep a good grip without hurting him, and I felt my heart hammering against my chest. After all this, was he going to be hurt by the very people trying to save his life? There was just so much blood and no way to keep it from making everything slick.

_Listen, kid, I know you don't want to come out of there,_ I acknowledged silently. _I mean you probably thought you did at first with all the squeezing and pushing going on, but now that all these people are poking and pulling you and everything, I can't blame you for changing your mind. It's really cold in here too, and you're not used to that, but I promise I'll take care of you until Mother wakes up. You just have to cooperate with them a little bit right now, okay…?_

The sight of his hand when it finally emerged took my breath away. It was the first part I'd seen that was recognizably Ka'andesi, but it was so small that it seemed to belong to a being from another world. Legs and equally tiny feet soon followed. I hadn't been able to get a good look at his face from my vantage point; Asorei's hands were still on either side of his head, but Krir shifted position to cradle him and I caught a brief glimpse of nose before the healer reached two fingers into his mouth.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I demanded.

"It's okay," Ierei said, looking up at me. "She's just—"

But then the baby let out a furious shriek that told me all I needed to know.

"Definitely Fox's boy," Krir rumbled dryly. 

* * *

And here we have it, finally, the arrival of Ben Kenobi!


	20. The Hawk

**The Hawk**

_Inauspicious beginnings often take us to great heights. And plummet us to greater depths._

—_Lessons I learned From Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi,_ by Inalia Kenobi, Chronicler of the Ch'lliear

It wasn't long after my brother's arrival that we heard the sound of heavy scraping and about five pairs of booted feet from the back of the cave. My mother was still unconscious, and with the adults tending to her, Ierei had taken it upon herself to show me how to hold the baby. Both of us froze when the noises began. Awkwardly, I shifted him into one arm and grabbed for Dad's blaster with the other hand. Ierei dropped into a defensive crouch and snatched up a rifle, letting out a snarl that sent a shiver of fear up my spine.

"It's all right," Uncle Krir called over to us, his tone distracted. "Better put on your _adat_, Owen."

"What?" I blinked.

Warily, Ierei straightened up and lowered her weapon. She trusted her father and would obey him no matter what, but I could still see her nose twitching and flaring in the eerie light of the glowrods. Krir barked something to her in their native language, and she whined a response.

"I'll get it," she told me, scanning the cave floor for my discarded covering. She picked it up after a few moments and tried to hand it back to me, but I gave a helpless shrug, having no idea how I was supposed to get the thing over my head while holding a squirming infant.

"Oh. Right. Hold on," Ierei said briskly.

"What are you—?" I started to ask, but before I could finish the sentence, she scampered behind me and stuffed the mask over my head. I tried to cry out in alarm, but what came out was just a muffled, "Mrph!"

There wasn't time for anything else. Just as the weird pall of the mask descended on me, other masked clanspeople began to emerge from the back of the cavern. I swallowed and stared in confusion.

"How did they get in here?" Ierei whispered.

"Um," I said.

"Foxes always have bolt holes," replied the stranger in the front of the group. The voice was deep and gravelly—an old man's voice, I thought, but although it seemed familiar to me, I couldn't identify the speaker.

He gestured to the others, who silently fanned out from behind him. Two took up guard positions while the rest moved briskly toward where Krir and Asorei were tending to my mother. Then he took two steps toward my brother and I, stopped, and planted hands on his hips.

"Well, Owen Kenobi," he asked me formally in the language of our people, "What name have you chosen for this child?"

"Me?" I squeaked shyly, glad of the _adat_ which hid my blushing cheeks.

"Your mother had not yet brought one to me," he replied, and my face became still redder as I realized who the man was. Aquila Obern, called Talon by all four of the Ka'andesi clans, was the current leader of the Ch'lliear Council. That he came here now filled me with both awe and dread for my parents. The question he asked me laid an even heavier weight on my chest.

Our tradition held that a new baby had to be given a name within the first hour of its birth. Parents usually told their choices to the district Chronicler before the mother went into labor. That way if anything happened to the parents, the Chronicler or the Weaver could name the child. Since my mother _was_ Chronicler, she must have been planning to bring the baby's name to Obern.

The old stories said that if a baby wasn't named in time, its soul might be in danger. I don't think anyone really believed that nowadays, but I'd never met a Ka'andesi who didn't make sure that my mother knew all their childrens' names before the birthing day arrived.

Naming someone was an important responsibility, though. Whoever gave a baby its name was accepting part of the burden of taking care of it and teaching it clan ways. I figured I already _had_ that task ahead of me, but it was different to say so in front of the clan leader.

"I…" I swallowed, sure that was probably as red as a raspberry underneath my mask.

Ierei cleared her throat.

_Thank the Force!_ I thought, throwing a hurried glance in her direction.

She mumbled something without opening her mouth.

"What…?" I whispered back.

Her hand moved furtively in the shadows, and she flicked her eyes toward it. Reluctantly, I looked down, conscious of Obern's steady gaze on us even through his _adat_. He was waiting for an answer, and I knew that I had better give it soon. When I understood the gesture that Ierei was making though, my apprehension melted. Any other time, I would have hugged her with relief.

"Ben!" I exclaimed, bringing my eyes backed to the leader's obscured face. "I—um—mean, Talon Obern, my brother will be called Ben Kenobi."

Obern didn't speak for several seconds. I bit my lip, wondering if I had made a mistake. I'd seen both my mother and my aunt make this kind of declaration before, and I was pretty good at formal grammar. It _should_ have been right to say "my brother" instead of "this child." Had I left something out?

"Are you both certain that this is the name you choose?" Obern asked.

"Of course we are!" Ierei blurted.

Obern moved his head to look at her for a second, but I couldn't tell through the mask whether he was pleased or upset. Ierei's hand moved to clasp mine, and I knew from the tightness of her grip that the leader made her nervous. She didn't lower her eyes, though. Obern turned back to me.

"His name is Ben Kenobi," I affirmed, still puzzled. It wasn't normal for anybody to question a baby's name like this. I guessed it could've been because Ierei had helped me, but I didn't see why that should matter as long as I was the one who _ gave_ the name.

"Very well," Obern nodded, lifting his own hand to cover both of ours, which rested lightly on my infant brother. "Welcome, young Hawk. May you fly far, but always return to the land and the people who have given you your name."

* * *

To everybody who's still following this one, thank you for patience. My health has not been good for the last year and a half. I found these on my hard drive and realized I'd never posted them. I will continue _Places Brothers Go_ and the _Land and Sky _AU at some point in the future. I can't make promises right now about regular updates due to my health situation. You can check my profile or my livejournal (so-out-of-ideas at livejournal dot com) if you're interested in personal updates. I'll update my fanfiction projects as I'm able.


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